The End of a Bloodline
by Jay's World
Summary: Blood stains my clothes, my hands, my cheeks, and then my lips as I kiss his bloodied hair. His blood…always tainting my hands. Forever. I'm sorry. AU, non-canon vampires.
1. Where the lost ones go

**"The End of a Bloodline"****  
><strong>**by****  
><strong>**Jay's World**

~For you, whom I will never forget, and always love~

http:/www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=qaFXrOZDMBA

-.-

**Chapter:** 1. Where the lost ones go

**Rated:** M

**Note: **AU, graphic mature content.

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta:** mephis1** - **thank you, you're a great friend and an excellent beta!  
>And if there are any mistakes left in here, they are all mine.<p>

**A/N: **This is a completely new story for me, of course, but also a new genre. I've never written vampires, not like this, so bear with me...  
>You won't find the Twilight pussy version of Edward, or the predatorily Jasper, or shy and 120lbs Bella. What I've written, I've written with purpose;<br>whether it be personal confiding or in the grand scheme of things.

Another thing: Listen to Bon Iver. And Justin Vernon on his own. My inspiration.

**Summary: **Death. Blood. His hands on my throat. Sweet exhale. Then nothing. AU, non-canon vampires

-.-

One touch of cumin goes in, the salt next, with pepper always as a dear companion – before egg yolk and cream complete the mixture. The mixer does its part, turning the cauliflower into a beautiful soup; the chicken broth added ever so gently to make the texture perfect.

The bread turns golden in the oven, and the beeper goes off just as I put the soup to a light simmer. The scent of freshly baked bread assaults my nose when I open the oven door. It's perfect, as always, and I lean back against the counter once it's covered in towels to cool off.

This is what I do.

This is what I _can _do.

In the midst of sorrow and despair, I do the only thing I know how; feed their stomachs and keep their physical needs sated, because I cannot wipe away their tears, nor can I whisper soothing words and recite amusing anecdotes to make them forget for a little while, just one moment, why they're sad in the first place.

I never have. All I have done is cook.

Mom.

Dad.

Tyler.

While others grieved, I cooked.

And when soups and casseroles had boiled up, my feelings had too, but easily brought down from the edge with just a flick of the wrist; the knob turned down three notches and taken off the heat.

Removed from the situation, the same way I remove myself from pain.

As for the cooking, it's quite literal; just lifting the pan off the plate and placing it on a trivet – but as for me it's done a little different. My being remains rooted to the floor, hands and feet and face doing the motions of greeting and nodding and smiling, but my mind fleets away; traveling across oceans and continents, to happy places and fond memories.

Today, I cook for someone else who's grieving, and still I turn grey. I turn away, only offering a small apologetic smile and timid condolences. Mrs. Cope on the other hand, does not see my hesitation, and pulls me in for a tight hug; almost making me drop the Tupperware containers in my hands.

Two soups, cauliflower and pumpkin.

Two loafs of homemade bread.

One tray of cupcakes; topped with chocolate frosting and white sprinkles.

They're his favorites.

_Were. _

"I'm so happy you could join us. I hope we didn't pry you away from anything important, dear, I know how stressful you can get," she says in a way that only an old grandmother can; full of love and understanding – opposed to critical and accusing; which my boss had done when I told him I needed a day off.

But I had told him the truth, a friend had died and the funeral was being held quite quickly; so he had relented and let me go. I hadn't been surprised by his suspicions though, many tried to get out of rough shifts by blaming on funerals, and I could understand his apprehension. But I had been truthful, and I need this day to cope.

The reception is held in their two room apartment, just down the hall from me, and though I never once saw them with visitors, the room is packed by old and young. Grey haired men and women are paying their respect to a man who did great things, and children who I'm sure would rather go outside on this sunny September day.

There is barely a breeze outside, the sun warming just right, and the leaves are a beautiful disarray of orange, red, green, and brown.

But as leafs fall, so has a man.

The evening goes by in a haze, but I stay put, loyal, remaining until the last of the soup is consumed, and the last cupcake devoured by greedy little mouths, because I know he would have liked me to stay. I never had before; never passing the threshold when I gave them fresh bread, always in a hurry to leave.

He had understood, of course, how could he not have when he had been a working man himself all his life? But I still feel guilty now, looking back, knowing I could have spent more time with him; talked with him.

The day ends, darkness falls over a cement jungle, and the faraway sunset of orange, pink, and distant yellow turned grey, fall behind skyscrapers. The moon rises, offering light to the city that never sleeps, and I return tired and worn to my apartment down the hall, promising Mrs. Cope to bring her the usual.

Bread; free of all things gluten, because through the years she had gotten used to her husband's diet.

It's how I met them; overhearing them heatedly discussing his distaste of the horrid store-bought bread. "It tastes stale and old. For God's sake Edna, I am a grown man and I won't let no baby faced fresh-out-of-college doctor decide what I can and cannot eat. You eat it, and you'll agree with me, sweetheart. Trust me on this, I'd rather die of digestive problems than get by on something that tastes like gravel and dirt."

I'd butted in, offered my services, and every morning at four o'clock in the morning, I had begun setting a dough of bread before heading into shower before work. It had become a routine, and now I don't know what I'll do with the time. Sleeping in seems like such a waste of the golden morning, but what else? Mrs. Cope has already declared she'll move to her sister in Florida, so there will be no one left for me to tend to.

Jasper is hardly here, and when he is, there isn't much time left for cooking. Mornings are drawn out, having to drag myself away from his warm body; but when he's away, and Mrs. Cope now as well, I don't see the silver lining.

Days go by, melting into one another, and on Sunday, my one and only real day off, I help Mrs. Cope drag boxes upon boxes down the many stairs. It's drizzling outside, grey clouds huddling together in conspiracy to make my day even worse.

Another day to grieve.

Another friend lost.

"He loved you like you were his own flesh and blood, Isabella," she smiles through tears and hugs, giving me further guilt of not devoting my time to him. "Never forget that. I will always remember how kind you were."

"The feeling's mutual, Mrs. Cope."

It's heartfelt, truly, but sounds so generic and cold.

I watch her grandson slam the truck door closed behind the grey and fragile woman, and I wave them off as the sky opens and the rains starts to pour. But I don't move, I just stand there and look after them, even when I'm drenched to the bone and I've lost the feeling in my toes.

I stand, feeling, grieving, letting the droplets of my tears fall on my cheeks, _feeling _myself hollow.

In the span of a week, I have lost one friend forever, and then his wife; who went willingly.

Three days later, when I get home from a long shift and check the messages on my machine, I find an unfamiliar and harsh voice filling the vast space of my apartment. "Hello, this is Phyllis Cooper. If I've reached the right Isabella Swan, I called to tell you Edna passed away last night in her sleep. The doctor says she went peacefully. Well, that was all, good day."

I haven't even closed the door or hung up my coat, and my knees give away beneath me.

_She's dead. _

_Another one. _

_They all die. _

And I'm to blame.

-.-

"_It's your fault. You killed him. You killed my son!"_

"_Get out, get out of my house!"_

"_You're dead to me."_

-.-

The _whoosh_ing of wind and the cackling of branches on my window pane wakes me up right before my alarm sings. It's scratching the glass, sounding like chalk on a blackboard, and despite my attempts to ignore it, it irks me. Keeps me up. Frightens me.

So I swing my legs over the bed and turn off the alarm before it has a chance to make me grimace. The lights stays off as I trip to the bathroom, but turn it on once inside. I undress to the bone, flipping my hair out, and stare at the wall. The mirror reflects someone I don't recognize, although she looks vaguely familiar.

Distraught eyes on a full and worn face.

Tangled brown hair covering broad shoulders and a faded scar.

Lips, nose, ears; traits inherited from a working-class generation that fought in Vietnam and cried over Kennedy.

Hello little Swan.

But I am not her, no, I'm a little girl with braces and greasy hair. Who is this woman who looks ten years her senior, with the weight of the world on her shoulders? No, I am not her, I'm a little girl who loves her parents and her brother, who takes the bus to school and plays tag in recess.

I'm a Freshman getting her first kiss behind the bleachers.

I'm a Sophomore having "the talk" with her overly open mother.

I'm a Junior getting plastered on her first house party.

But there it stops, because the Senior is this stranger in the mirror.

She's the woman I see.

I cry, because, fuck, I _am _her.

Water washes away the streaks on my cheeks, and my hands make quick work of my hair and body. Ten minutes, in and out, dry up and hair down, letting it tangle yet again before fighting the brush while rushing out the door.

It's drizzling in the cold September morning, and the sky is still dark. Streaks of gold tint the horizon, and rise further into the heavens as I walk, my small heels _clicking clacking _against the pavement. Black umbrellas and suits pass me, brief cases in hand and high voices shouting. Stock brokers, CEO's, and those who do the walk of shame with wild hair and smeared lip stick.

Poor women.

Poor men.

Do they wake up to empty beds?

Do they wake up cold and alone, feeling as if the world itself has abandoned them?

Do they feel…like me?

"You're late."

It's my "good morning" from someone who has seen too much and cares too little. Ms. Webber, despite her brusque attitude and cold stare, is efficient and gets the job done. She hands out lists and important messages, reminding us all that if her ass is handed to her, we lose our own.

Kicked to the street.

Forget about a paycheck.

Forget about living.

"If you continue this Isabella, you might as well go down to the shelter; I'm sure they'll like the sight of you much more there than we do here. Jimmy might've cut you a slack last week, but believe me he won't be as forgiving if I tell him about your tardiness. Now get changed, Suite 204 is checking out early."

I nod, get to work, and the day passes by like they always do; slowly, creeping, taunting me with the sight of the other side. Luxury and Egyptian cotton, chocolate and champagne, fancy dresses and designer shoes; they are put on this earth with the sole purpose of taunting me. Cruel men and women, with money to keep a small country fed for years, and they toss it away on material things they get bored with so quickly!

With that kind of money, I would have done good things.

At least that's what I tell myself while scrubbing toilets.

That's how grand I think I am while I make beds.

It's the perfect version of myself I daydream about while I keep my head down when passing guests in the hallways.

God-fucking-ugly red carpet, you'd think a billion dollar hotel would have nicer carpets. Alas, I shrug it off and continue making the life of the rich worth living.

After all, without the likes of me, there would be no luxury.

They don't understand that, and why should they? I am just dust in the wind, annoying, to be avoided. To them, I am nothing.

"_You're dead to me."_

And to me, too many have died.

Oh dear Mr. Cope, in heaven, there is no such thing as celiac disease, and the south won the war. By your side, Mrs. Cope, she is the ballerina you met.

Perfect, together.

Together, in death.

While I will die…alone.

Lonely.

I will die without having lived.

And in my funeral, there will only be a minister and a coffin.

I sound pathetic, truly, but then life has made me this way.

"Can you take my shift tomorrow?" Stanley asks, yet again. I nod and put on my coat. I do it out of kindness, doing her work and giving her the money, but she needs it more than I do. She is brining life into this world, her stomach growing every day, and her doctor appointments keep interfering with our work. But because I saw her eyes, saw life leave them as she broke down in the hallway and cry and sulk, I do her work. Because I might be alone, but she is more so, as she has been given the responsibility of motherhood to shoulder.

God, may I never bear children, because I'm certain I'll surely ruin their lives as well.

"You're a lifesaver, Isabella. Thank you."

I nod again, hugging her goodbye, before I go out in the drizzling wind that has picked up from this morning. But instead of going home, instead of getting warm and relax on the couch or making a good soup and dessert, I head in the opposite direction.

I may not be the most materialistic girl, but I do live in a man's world, and everything has it's price.

Like my apartment.

The food I eat.

The clothes I wear.

The hotel gives away nothing but minimum wage, and Jasper has use of me oh-so rarely, not even the times he is in town, so I survive on drunken idiots and their wandering eyes. Jeans on, white t-shirt, apron, and I am good to go, tending the bar and pouring drinks.

I started this job with nothing, and now, three years later, I still have nothing.

I began this job sobbing to the manager that it was my only salvation, with no experience of bar-keeping at all, and now I work every night from Tuesday 'til Saturday, making the lives of others just a tad easier while they drown their sorrows in cheap booze.

Huh.

I tend to the rich, making their lives fabulous; and I care for the poor, getting them through the day. Because I nurture on instinct, no matter what, when what I do need the most is for someone to care for _me. To love_ _me. _

_Billy's _bar is packed when I get there, on time, and I go straight into working.

"That'll be five dollars, Sir."

"There's a bathroom in the back, Miss."

"No, now get your hands off me."

"Hey, Billy, Sue coming in later?"

It's just another day at work, starting from six 'til four, and five 'til eleven. I'm exhausted, even after all these years, but maybe labor is something your body will never really adjust to, 'cause when you push yourself to the limit and then some, it just shuts down. I learned that quickly, at the fresh age of twenty-one, when I collapsed after a month of work.

Doctor said I had to cut back on the stress

I said, "Fuck you, you're giving me medical bills that essentially will only give me more stress!" and got the hell out before he charged me even more. Not having insurance does that to a person; it makes them hopeless and distrusting.

Thank God I met Jasper, or I'd kicked the bucket a long time ago.

And he's home, surprisingly, when I drag my ass up the many flights of stairs and kick open my door. He's there, lying buck naked on my kitchen counter, looking like something a God would envy.

"Why are you naked in my kitchen?"

"Well, sweetheart, I was hoping you'd already be home, but seems like the old ball-and-chains are working your fine ass more than it should. So, I thought I'd give you a treat for all that work."

I laugh. The man single handedly lifts my spirit with a single line.

"Well," I drawl, dropping my bag to the floor and pushing my coat off. My t-shirt clings from hours of sweaty work, and my hair clings to my forehead, and his eyes transfix on me. God, he makes me feel so beautiful. "You certainly do taste quite…delicious."

"You bet. But not nearly as tasty as you. Come here, sweetheart."

He jumps off the counter, his hard cock standing erect from his body.

Oh yes, he does make me feel beautiful.

-.-

"_What did you do?"_

"_No, no, please God no!"_

"_You did this! You killed him!"_

-.-

I wake up with a start, alone, cold, crying.

The shower's running and the lights are on.

I hate it when he does that.

"Use your own water, don't steal mine," I tell him once he emerges, dripping wet, one towel around his waist and another drying his hair. It's wilder when it's wet, darker, but he still looks good. Always.

Brad Pitt can eat dust.

"Good morning to you, too, sweetheart," he mocks, pulling on his pants. "You'd think a fuck like that would cheer you up some, but, I guess that's just me. Call me when you get off the rag, will ya?"

He's out, leaving me in the harsh light of the lamps, feeling filthy.

God, I always piss him off. Then why does he keep coming back?

The man is an idiot, he knows my curse.

Everyone I love dies.

So I can't love him, I can't let him in, let him close to my heart. I bite, I shout, I snarl, I do everything to keep him at distance.

He calls out, from the living room, and I guess he didn't leave after all.

Fool.

"Put on the white button up and get your ass out here, Swan, the sun's rising."

I do as I'm told, making a quick stop in the bathroom to check my hair and face, pulling a brush through it and messing it back up with my hands. It's controlled chaos. It's me. And then I'm out in the cold biting morning, leaning on the rusty black banister of the fire steps, letting my head fall back and my mouth split ever so slightly.

_Click. _

_Click. _

_Click-click-click. _

He's very professional when we do this, always in control and giving directions, trying to catch the light as it falls perfectly on my cheeks, highlighting my good features. My cheekbones, well structured from my father's side. My nose; lean and strong from my mother's genes. Then he tells me to let my head tip to the side and forward, so my hair covers my face, and when I see the shots later, I look like a raven caught in the sunlight.

Cowering.

Running.

Fearful.

"Thank you, sweetheart," he whispers and kisses my cheek. "I'll call you if anything comes up."

Ah, the exhibition. He tries so hard, traveling cross-country for the perfect sceneries, then across the pond, to foreign lands and starving villages, to catch the beauty and the ugly of the world.

I am an exception, because he says America is a beast to Africa's natural finesse, but that I am what falls between the cracks; forgotten but forceful.

He takes my picture, and he makes me feel beautiful. Just for a little while.

"Want some breakfast?" I ask him, running back into the warmth and locate my socks on the floor. He follows, shrugs, and gets fully dressed. "Or something for the road. Where are you going this time?"

"Wisconsin. My cousin called and said there's some broken down mills in a small town that would good in the _"Remnants" _collection." I nod, agreeing. "So I'm going tomorrow. Have dinner with me first?"

"And by have dinner, you mean, will I cook you food?"

"Exactly, sweetheart."

"Then come by around four thirty. Monday's are slow so Billy won't need me 'til seven."

"Then I'll see you at four thirty. Oh, and before I go, did you want the pictures I enhanced?"

I smile, warm, happy for a change. "Yes, please!"

He chuckles, kissing me on the lips before he walks out the door. "Bye, Beautiful."

_Goodbye. _

_Shit, I think I love him after all. _

_No!_

* * *

><p>Tell me what you think?<p>

Next update in two-weeks time - I'm gonna try to make it as regular as possible, so I need the time to finish! (Just too impatient to wait anymore)


	2. The grass is dead

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter:** 2. The grass is dead, frozen; blossoms withering in winter's wind

**Rated:** M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **mephis1

**A/N:** I couldn't wait two weeks...I'm impatient like that.  
>Anyways, let me know what you think of it?<p>

-.-

I walk around with a smile plastered on my face all day, looking like a complete lunatic. Who smiles as they wash grime off toilet seats and clean up puke?

Damn pseudo rock stars.

But I don't seem to care today, 'cause, damn, I'm in love.

With how his body dips and tilts.

The dimples above his ass.

The crooked smile showing teeth and stubble.

Those beautiful blue eyes that look at me a moment longer than they should.

I'm in love...

I'm in love with Jasper!

-.-

"_You're not my daughter."_

"_I hate you."_

"_Murderer."_

-.-

"Hey, Isabella, wake up."

"Huh?"

"Didn't you get any sleep last night at all?"

I look up from my crossed arms, finding Stanley above me, peering down, looking concerned. It should be the other way around. After all, she's the one expecting and yet, I feel a little relieved that she notices me. Not many do.

"Jasper kept me up," I grin, remembering how he snuck in just before midnight claiming he couldn't sleep, picking me up in his arms so that our entire bodies were intertwined and sated long into the night. God, he's perfect, and sweet.

And leaving today.

It puts a damper on my mood. Combined with my bad dreams, they turn me into a sour-puss the next couple of hours. Stanley and I work the fifth floor, happy to be out from the watch of Webber, whose main concern today is the suits. Some hot shot producer was unhappy with the Crowne Plaza, and switched to us – so only the best of the cleaners, butlers, concierges, and kiss-asses are working the top floors.

Hence, the reason why Stanley and I are busting our own asses down here on fifth.

Where the normal people live.

Well, normal people with enough wealth stay at the Ritz Carlton, but they are obviously not wealthy enough to enjoy imported caviar from Russia, fresh salmon from Norway, and champagne from…well, Champagne.

"Do you ever wonder what it's like to actually sleep in these beds?"

I nod, dusting off the desk table by the window. Stanley is making the bed, folding the corners neatly into the mattress, making sure there's no single wrinkle to be seen.

"But be realistic here, Jessica. The chance of that ever happening is slim to none. Beyond none!"

"Oh, don't be such a pessimist, Isabella. Come here, lay down with me."

I gasp, surely she hasn't?

Oh, but she has.

When I turn around, she's laying there in her grey and white uniform, grinning from ear to ear.

It's ridiculous, oh so dangerous if someone catches us slack off, but we're ahead of schedule, so maybe…?

I drop the duster and push into a short sprint before tossing my body in next to her. We bounce on the bed, ruffling the fine satin sheets, but we don't give a damn to hell. We're young; we should be allowed such pleasures once in a while.

I heave, her giggles stop, and we just lay there, staring at the ceiling. Wondering. Wandering. Wanting.

"If you could wish for anything in this entire world, what would it be?"

I'm met with a moment of silence, while she thinks, I ponder my own response – _I wish I hadn't killed him. _

"I'd wish Mike would have stayed, and that we would have had a perfect family and a happily ever after. I would have wished that I didn't have to work in a fucking hotel, and that I was rich; staying in those top suites, traveling across the globe and having the best of everything. I'd wish the world was fair, and perfect, and that people like me had a chance to succeed."

She turns to sob, hiccupping, burying her face in the crook of my neck. I embrace her body, letting my arm go up and down her back in consolation.

"You know, it's not that bad. You have us; your friends. And your mom. She let you stay, didn't she?" She nods, so I continue, "And he was probably just shocked…Mike, I mean. When he gets some time to think, I'm sure he'll come back. He loves you so, I've seen it. Do you remember that time we had a picnic in Central Park? Last year, before you started dating? Well, you didn't see it then, 'cause you were so caught up in the sunny day, but he couldn't take his eyes off of you. And…if he doesn't come back, then Jess, he doesn't deserve you or your child."

She peaks her head up, eyeing me carefully. "You really think so?"

I smile, "I know so."

And we're the best of friends, as the day goes on, and her mom picks her up outside the backdoor. _God forgive if we would be seen in the entrance! _I wave them goodbye, before rushing on to my own place.

Place, not home.

I don't know where that is yet.

I used to, but now? Now, I am homeless.

Back in Brooklyn, as the sun sets behind the tall concrete trees in the grey jungle, I carry white plastic bags up the stairs, breathing heavily with sweat shining on my forehead as I reach my floor. Inside my apartment, I jump in the shower and wash the grime off my body; feeling refreshed when I enter my bedroom with a towel in my hand.

He cat-calls, whistling with a big grin on his face.

I gasp, covering myself up.

"Now, sweetheart, I think we can both verify that I have seen you in your birthday suit before," he winks, grabbing the towel from me, and stepping back. God, I feel so naked, so exposed, so…ugly. Tears gather in my eyes.

Why does he like me?

Why does he bother sleeping with me at all?

Compared to him, I am nothing.

"Hey, hey, don't cry," he rushes, taken aback by my sudden mood swing. But he should know I keep the lights off for a reason when he's here. "Hey, sweetheart, don't you cry. Hey, look at me." He lifts my chin up, making me stare into his beautiful blue eyes. Dark irises dilate, possibly glinting, and he looks distraught. "Don't you dare be ashamed of your body. Sweetheart, you are beautiful, inside out, and you know it. And, I say this with the best intention, there's nothing wrong with something to hold on to."

I crack a laugh, and he smiles.

"Besides, I love watching your ass jiggle when I slap it."

I right out laugh, pushing on his chest, but he holds me tight, crushing me into him. I'm sure we look absolutely ridiculous, me butt naked and him dressed from head to toe, but I can't find it in me to care, because his arms feel so good around me – making me feel secure, loved, _beautiful. _

We share a kiss, chaste, but so full of passion it makes my knees week.

He breaks away, licking his lip. "Now, I came for dinner, now feed me woman!"

I giggle and slap his arm before he goes out into the living room, leaving me to dress. With the lights on this time, because I'm all alone again. His words truly are caring, loving, but there are some things I just cannot change, like my own opinion on my body.

But how can I forget the past?

_Lardo. _

_Belly. _

_Fatty. _

_Seventy pounds overweight._

It's not something my teenager self had handled well, and even now, fifty pounds lighter and seven years later, I still can't shake off the haunting and tormenting voices of cheerleaders and jocks making lewd gestures behind me. High school was tough enough with acne, crushes, and the anxiety for the future, but carrying too much weight on your body hadn't made it any easier.

Sure, I'd make out with Eric behind the bleachers; a bench warmer from the basketball team with too much wax in his hair and untamed eyebrows, skinny arms and an awkward stance – and sure, I went to parties; everyone was invited when booze was involved, but that didn't take off the edge of constant self-awareness.

I knew how the rolls on my stomach would gather my sweater when I sat down.

I knew that my ass would use up all the space on the chairs and then some.

I knew that the snickers in the locker rooms when I took off my shirt weren't innocent banter between friends.

I'd gone to my mom when I was seventeen, crying my eyes out that I didn't want to go on living if life would be like that. So she smiled, wiped away my tears, and kissed my cheek, and took me to the doctor the next day, asking for advice.

It wasn't even that I ate too much; no, after just three weeks of writing down what I ate and when, they'd soon discovered that I ate too little, but what I ate was unhealthy, and I ate irregularly, causing my weight to spiral out of control. So over the next year I'd worked out and paid close attention to what I ate. I also learned to cook so that I was in charge and in control over my own body.

But I still have the stretch marks from when my stomach had threatened to become larger in width than I was in height.

I still feel like my thighs are too big and my arms could set sails to an Armada.

His words have the ability to make me feel beautiful, appreciative of who I am now, but the past will always be present in the back of my mind, reminding me of what I used to be, of what I _am. _

-.-

"_It should have been you. You should have died."_

"_You killed him. It's all your fault."_

-.-

He's sitting on a bar stool by the counter when I emerge from my bedroom, fully clothed in jeans and a button up, and I trip over to him and give him a kiss.

"What was that for?"

"For making me smile."

He chuckles. "Well you do have a beautiful smile."

We chat while I cook; braising the meat and making Duchesse potatoes from scratch. Always from scratch. And tonight I don't care if it's a bomb of calories waiting on my plate, because all I want to do is enjoy these last hours I have with him before he slips away once again. He requests a béarnaise sauce, always teasing when I screw it up – but gah, it's not easy to make and he's not that easy to please. When it comes to homemade béarnaise he sure is picky.

"Don't burn it this time!" he calls dramatically, as if his life depends on it, before laughing at my scowl. "Ah, sweetheart, you know I'm only teasing. I love your cooking."

"You know it!"

I plate the meat, setting it all on the counter where we pour wine into our glasses and raise them, _clinking _them in appreciation for the wonderful meal. He shoves it all into his mouth, moaning in ways that make me blush, and there is sauce on his chin for the next five minutes. I, on the other hand, eat carefully, not rushing one bit.

Because I want him to stay longer.

"Here, you, err, got some sauce..."

He looks at me, confused, wiping his hand over the wrong cheek. I laugh, climbing off the chair and stalk over to him. I take his face in my hands, getting up on my toes. "No, here," I whisper and lick it off, sensually, trying my best at being seductive and erotic.

One of my hands fall from his cheek, trailing over his belt buckle before brushing over his crotch. He groans, grasping my face with his own large hands, keeping me in place as he thrusts his tongue into my mouth, tasting like béarnaise and steak, and I moan loudly, pressing down on his now-bulging crotch.

"Oh, sweet Isabella," he murmurs as he slides off the chair, pressing me up again the kitchen counter, grounding into me. "Such a fucking tease.

"So beautiful too, did you know that?

"And so fucking sexy. God, I could watch you all day and never get tired of it.

"I don't want to leave tonight."

And neither do I.

I want him to stay.

And hold me.

Love me.

Take care of _me. _

So I end up inching my head up, until I stare into his eyes with a blurry vision, and break the distance between our lips. He freezes at first, surprised by my move, but falls in line to give me what I want. Release. A break from the world and the reaper that follows me around.

He knows.

He knows my curse, and yet he stays.

Damned fool.

He lifts me up, turning me, my legs wrapping around his waist, before walking across the room and kicking my bedroom door open; turning off the lights before tossing me on the bed.

He breathes heavily, both from arousal and the act of carrying me.

I take off my own clothes while he watches, sensing everything through the darkness, and hide myself under the covers, waiting for him. Even though he can hardly see anything due to the dark, I know he sees.

He joins me, fast, his body above mine and the linens, pressing us together with a searing kiss. With his hands roaming, he touches, feels, enjoying soft skin, while I claw and press and yearn for more.

He dips his head to my neck, licking and sucking and kissing, driving me wild with his clever hands that curls and slide between my spread legs.

Now I touch, feel, while he grounds eagerly into me, _begging _to be let in.

Silly boy, all you have to do is ask.

I moan, he groans, we join at the hip and mouth and hands, and press and ground and twist, until my screams echo off the walls and he cries my name as he comes.

He rolls off, staying close, hugging me, while I want him to leave.

And stay.

Oh please don't leave me too.

But his plane is leaving in just over an hour. He _has _to leave.

I bury my head in his neck, holding on to him, wanting this feeling to last forever.

The feeling of salvation.

Of redemption.

Of love.

But he slips away far too soon, rushing out the door with his pants around his ankles, promising to call – but come on, when has he ever called when he's away? And still, my eyes prick watching him leave, wanting to rush after him, down the fire escape, pull a Pretty Woman and Richard Geer, pronouncing my love.

_I love you! _

I want to shout from the moon.

But he's gone, a yellow taxi breaking every speed limit there is, and all I can do is to sink back into the loneliness and darkness that consumes my every waking moment. I stand there, on the fire escape, letting my eyes follow him as far as they can, until he vanishes behind a street corner; melting into the grey night.

My toes curl up from the cold, and I go inside, trying to decide that to do. Go to work, or stay in this lonely apartment and be reminded of him? See his image on the bar stools, his wet naked body dripping, smiling, grinning, cursing as he comes with passion. No, I can't stay here.

So the patrons of Billy's Bar welcome me with lazy arms raised into the air; grasping mugs of beer in filthy hands. Working hands. I grab a towel and get to work, rinsing glasses and pouring beer. It's a slow night indeed, and Billy orders me home before the clock strikes midnight.

And when I sleep, I trash and scream and cry, waking up to a hoarse throat and wet cheeks in the middle of the night.

-.-

"_What have you done?"_

"_Where is he?"_

"_Why are you so selfish?"_

-.-

The Ritz is hosting a medical conference this week, so everywhere I look I see handsome men and women, tall and statuesque, even those who are less than desirable, walking the halls I clean. They have stature, privileges, education, and intelligence. They are so much more than me; a measly cleaning lady. _God, if I hear someone call me that one more time… _But they have earned their right to be obnoxious, after all those years in medical schools, studying night and day to earn the right to act like God. Making life and death decisions.

They are worshipped, and they expect nothing but excellence anywhere they go.

Take Doctor Gerandy for example. A middle aged man with a bald head and fat stomach, leaving towels on the floor and condoms on the dresser. He's disgusting, but every day he retreats to his room for some R&R, he expects is to be clean to a T.

Or else it's me who's the slob, not him.

God.

"You've been slacking off, Swan," Ms. Webber growls in the changing room. We're alone, but it doesn't take off the edge of my humiliation – a thousand people could be watching and it wouldn't have made a difference, because when I walk out that door they will know why I'm crying. "Doctor Gerandy went to management. Are you listening to me? _Management. _He went straight up to Jimmy and said it was _the worst kind of housekeeping service he had ever encountered. _Do you understand how this reflects on me, do you? _I'm _being blamed for this. And god, I swear to you Swan, if I get called into that office today, I will make your life a living hell!"

_More than it already is?_

_I'd like to see you try. _

But, it seems like my life can get worse – Ms. Webber is called into Jimmy's office, emerging half an hour later with a red face and blazing eyes. She seeks me out, as I'm just closing the door to Doctor Gerandy's room, and I'm instantly terrified.

"You're fired."

I stutter. "Wha-wha-_what?_ You can't just fire me for that!"

"Oh yes I can, and I have. You're on your own, Swan. Pack up your stuff and get the hell out."

I stare at her, tears brimming, unable to fully comprehend what she's saying. Fired? But, but, this is my main source of income. I have no education, nothing, I barely passed High School, and she fires me from the only job I could ever get with my résumé?

"You can't do that! No, please, I'll do better, just _please_," I beg, grasping her hand. She jerks it away, like she's a queen and I am peasant; unworthy to touch her. "I'll apologize to him. I swear. I'll work the extra shifts, just _please don't fire me._"

"I'm sorry," she says, though it's obvious she's not, "it's already decided."

-.-

"_You're so selfish. Why weren't you looking after him?"_

"_Can't you think of anyone but yourself?"_

"_You did this. You killed him!"_

-.-

I walk in a complete haze back to Brooklyn, gazing out the window of the subway train, wondering just how in the world I ended up here in New York, piss broke, with no way to support myself, helplessly in love with someone who only sees me as a fuck buddy, and with nothing to hold on to.

It didn't use to be like this; I was a nice girl, with a nice family, living in a nice town.

They said I was selfish. That I killed him.

_Oh Tyler. _

And they were right; I had killed him. I had caused his death with my selfishness; being far too focused on the image reflecting back in the mirror. But I wasn't supposed to be with him; I was supposed to be with my friends and be a kid for one last month. I was _supposed_ to be carefree.

He was _supposed _to be okay. It's Forks, for fuck's sake, nothing ever happens there.

No one is murdered.

No one is thrown out.

No one blames a High School girl for killing her own brother.

But it happened, and they did, shunning me out of town.

"_Don't you ever come back, you selfish little bitch. I never want to see your face here again."_

There was no evidence.

No trace.

Just a body, and blood – covering me as I wept over his cold dead body.

They said I killed him.

And they were right.

I did kill him, with my selfishness and vanity.

_I just wanted to be thin. _

Like that girl right there in the red coat, standing by the door holding onto the handle with a white gloved-covered hand. A black beret covering the top of her golden locks, framing her heart-shaped face. Every man on this train notices her as she stands out from the crowd in black knee length leather boots, because she's a vision. A 5'9'', 154 pound vision.

Ever since I was a little chubby blob, _she's _what I've craved to be, and it caused me a life to become half of her. Or, one and a half of her…

But I go by unnoticed, a wallflower melting into the background, with tired eyes and sore limbs.

Eyes glance past me, overlooking the killer in the corner, clad in old jeans and a boring brown coat, who doesn't have a job to cover her rent or buy food. Maybe, if I'm lucky, Jasper's _"Black Dawn" _collage will make it in the galleries, and I'll earn my buck and bone.

Maybe, if I'm truly lucky, we'll hit the lottery and win a couple of millions, becoming rich and famous.

Maybe, if I'm lucky, I don't have to sit through the troubles of finding a cheaper place to live.

Maybe, if I am given peace, I don't have to live at all.


	3. The November breeze carries death

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter:** 3. The November breeze carries death

**Rated:** M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **mephis1

**A/N: **I am frankly astounded by the response to this so far. I'm a little speachless, actually.  
>Presenting a few more charachters in this chapter. One essential to one part of Isabella,<br>the other essential to the progress of the story. Defining, both.

**Warning: **The sensitive matter of suicide is brought up here, somewhat graphically.  
>I apologize beforehand to those who are offended by this.<p>

-.-

Brooklyn is overcast with a dark shadow turning it into a valley of doom and gloom. Darkness is something I'm quite familiar with, something I've always taken comfort in. Let's take my room, for example. It's always obscured once my clothes come off, a place to hide myself from…well, myself. And as for my state of mind, it's blackened by a haunting past and blood-curling nightmares.

Darkness is something I prefer, and yet, it also makes me nervous.

This is New York after all – crime rates are a little higher here compared to the small town of Forks.

Still, I quicken my pace and my heart-rate increases as my breaths become harder, and shallower. I'm pressed for time and walk swiftly through the concrete jungle of grey pavements and neon lights illuminating the existence of midnight crawlers. Creepers. Culprits. They lurk in the shadows and alley-ways where the lost ones live, and finders play keepers in those dark alley-ways.

Life is not for living, it's for surviving.

Death is not a sin, it is God-sent.

Bricks, bucks, bills, bullocks – the streets are littered with them, creating hope and disappointment in the same act of bending over to pick up a green clover, and only to have your smile wiped away by a steel blade in your back when someone sees your see no faces, and you are faceless yourself.

In the life of surviving, no one cares for their fellow-man.

I came, I saw, I stayed.

I set down my foot and made my nest on a street of thugs and whores, shooters and pimps. It's the kind of place where your grandma is likely to hide a gun by the door. It's the kind of place where it's commonplace to see a skinny stick-figure little boy on the corner being scarred for life every time a car pulls up to the curb.

This is New York.

Flowers don't come here to grow, they come to die.

We don't flourish or bloom; we wilt away until the only thing weaker than us is the withering ferns of Central Park

I didn't come to be nurtured, though I'd felt as though it was the only thing that could save me – no, I came to survive.

Sitting on rail ways, balancing on fire escapes, posing as beauty and truth, I made my living on lies and deceit – wandering, wondering, if I would ever actually find my way home in the end.

Foolishly, I'd called home, the dial tone hitting me in the heart like a ton of bricks.

I broke down, I cried, screaming in my despair. Then a stranger knocked down my door so hard I thought it would disconnect at its hinges.

And there had stood my knight, with hair so light I thought he was an angel, with scruff on his face and dark circles beneath his eyes. He saved me, he cared for me, he helped me earn my buck and bone.

I have fallen in love with an angel, whose wings are stained black from life's hardships, carrying his own world on broad shoulder and sturdily built legs. And he carries me, from the kitchen to the bedroom, holding me up against the tiled wall in the bathroom, groaning and moaning when life presents a sweet release.

"Ey, guuurly," a man slurs, pushing off the Sanders building smelling of week-old musk and sweat, and Sarah-the-slut's cheap perfume. I know her perfume, as it has filled the halls of my building, and the apartment below me with 70's porn music á la Stallone in "The Party at Kitty's and Stud's", hoarse moans and faked shouts of release.

I pity Sarah, and stop by Sanders with homemade sweets once in a while.

Now though, I wonder if she didn't do what she's paid to do, turning away men who turned callous in the streets.

_Rapists. _

_Killers. _

_New Yorkers. _

Damn her – did she get another abortion?

"Eh-," hiccup, "Eyhe, you, gur. C'mere."

I ignore his staggering feet and swinging arms – a bottle of Tennessee's cheapest Jack almost connecting with my side as he shuffle his feet out before me – and never falter my step. I live in New York, in _Brooklyn_, so I know better than to slow down when shifty strangers approach me. On the subway, on the bus, on the street; if you don't know them, don't bother like you want to. They will cause you pain, no matter what.

But drunkenness works in strange ways on different people; swaying some while boosting others, and although this man has me fooled, his hand shoots out like a bat out of hell, hitting me on my left cheek with the glass bottle of Jack he has in his hands.

_Bastard. _

He motions like he wants to keep me from falling, but I twitch away my arm and hit a puddle of soiled water on the ground. "So-so-sorry" he hiccups, with no regret evident in his slur. "D'nt thank you'd fall, n'all."

Such a strange man.

_Bastard. _

He leaves me alone, walking along the road of sins on the pathway to hell and hangovers.

I sit there, feeling the water drench my ass and freeze my body, and stare after him. _What the hell happened? _

Lady Sanders joins the outside world, a rare occurrence only to be seen in the early dawn when the paper boy still sleeps and customers are shown home. She's divine, all golden-haired and curves, a bust to be seen from the high-heavens, and heels that can spike through a man's nuts with ease.

Fierce, protective, boisterous.

She's propositioned me several times, _"You'd make an excellent addition to the house, Isabella…How is that job of yours holding on?...Won't you just come by one night, see what it's all about?" _and never once have I taken her offer. I may be desperate, and on some level I have daddy issues, but I will not now nor ever demean myself by becoming a whore.

I see Sarah, I see her scars – emotional and physical – and they make me shudder.

"Hello, Lady Sanders," I greet sweetly and get to my feet, hearing the _drip-drop _of water running from my rear end. "How are you tonight?"

She ignores me, and appraises me instead. "Was he bothering you?"

"No, not at all," I lie.

She doesn't buy it. She sees truth amongst lies and omissions. "He hurt Sarah," she states, and I gasp. "She's in the hospital, so I sent him away. Did he hurt you?"

I stagger. "N-n-no, not really. He tried to grab me but I pulled back and fell. After that he left. He's drunk." Then I backtrack. "Is it serious?"

In all the time I've known Lady Sanders, I have never seen her emotions get the best of her, but now, she's tumbling, crumbling, falling away before me. Words like broken ribs, fractured bones, head wounds, and internal bleeding terrify me to the death, and for a brief moment I think, _that could have been me, _had I taken Lady Sanders up on her offer. I could have been in that hospital bed, with tubes coming out from every opening there is, having nowhere to turn but to the whorehouse I came from.

But I'm not Sarah.

I'm Isabella.

With rent to pay and no main income.

All I have is Sue at the bar, and Jasper when he's in town.

He is supposedly returning today, but it's already past midnight and I haven't heard a single word from him.

Not a text.

Not a call.

I worry.

Is he okay?

"She'll be okay, Isabella," she reassures me with a tender smile and a hand to my cheek, brushing away some stray hairs that have fallen from my pony-tail.

I nod and flee up the block and into my safe haven.

Pure darkness.

My apartment is pitch-dark, and in my exhaustion following a day filled with extra shifts at the bar, I don't bother to put on the light, I trip and end up on the floor. _What the? _

There's a package on the floor, knocked over by my clumsy feet.

I flick the light on.

A canvas.

Oil marks with light, black, grey, shade. Flowing around a halo of bronze brown, chocolate mocha, and rosy red.

A body.

A woman's body that is peacefully sleeping on a large bed, the covers pushed down and around, tangling around her legs and covering indecent parts. Subtly showing the valleys and peaks of breasts, the curves of hips, the dips of ass. She's lying sideways and clutching the pillow as if her live depends on it.

I look closer, and see subtle pink on her thigh.

A scar.

Could it be?

I stare, I analyze, I evaluate.

Surely it cannot be?

But it is.

I see those curves, which I have stared at a thousand times before reflected in my own mirror. I recognize that mane of disheveled hair and pull a hand through my own, flicking it at the tips. I ponder over that mouth, and bite my lower lip, sucking in a deep breath.

On the bottom, signed crookedly in black, his name.

_Jasper Whitlock. _

I've always known his art was tremendous; the photographs he takes are like stills from real life, and his painting are like a vision of a god; ruins are turned into a paradise of haunted dreams. Seeing oil painting and water works, splayed across various canvases in his apartment.

But this?

I never knew he could turn wrecks into such beauteous creations.

He makes me feel beautiful, and when I look at this canvas, I _am _beautiful.

-.-

"_Murderer."_

"_Get out!"_

"_You're not welcome here anymore!"_

-.-

Someone is knocking on the door. Hearing the shuffling, huffing, puffing, and footsteps from the other side of the wall, I have a fair sense of who it is but I stay huddled on the couch – wrapped up in my many blankets.

The apartment is engulfed in a strange darkness; the sunset leaves an eerie orange gleam in the unnatural black. I have turned off every light and if there is a plug still attached to the wall in this place, I'll be pissed to an end.

I'm saving electricity to decrease my bills, and have chosen the best fucking day to do so even though it's the coldest day in early November. Outside there is frost on the ground, much to everyone's aggravation, and inside you're sneezing popsicles.

The cold is taking its toll on me, but I sit here, ignoring the increasing banging on my door.

_What's wrong with him? He has a key, use it!_

I groan, and get to me feet, keeping the blankets tightly wrapped around me, and shuffle over to the door.

I swing it open, "Did you lose your fucking key?" I snarl out fast, but soon halt.

I stagger, freeze, my mouth open mid-insult.

Before me stands not a tall godlike man, but a woman.

I don't know her, she's a complete stranger, and yet _she _looks at me – with piercing crystal eyes – like I'm someone from the past, seeing me with new eyes. Her eyes widen, her mouth opening just slightly, like I'm a surprise, when she's the one knocking down _my _door.

For a moment, she's completely silent, unmoving, and then havoc erupts, and her eyes blaze over with pure, white _hatred. _

"You're the slut?" she spits, taking a threatening step forward. "You're his whore?" Her eyes blaze over with tears, and I'm completely at loss of what to say. "You're the home wrecker that broke up my marriage?"

I find my voice, small and scared like a mouse standing before a Bengal tiger. "Wha-what are you talking about? Who _are _you?"

"Who am I? Who am I? I'm Maria _Whitlock, _you bitch!"

The world stops moving.

My soul tears away from my body, sailing upwards to the ceiling and looking down at the scene with petrified eyes.

My mouth opens, closes, stuttering. _I don't understand. Who is she? What is she saying?_

"Cat got your tongue? You're a hot shot when you're sneaking behind closed doors, but when reality smacks you in the face, you lose your head? Tell me – _Isabella, right? – _did it feel good knowing I was home, raising three kids on my own when you were screwing my husband? Were you _happy _when you were ruining my marriage? Huh? Answer me!"

Her words sting, like her hand that strikes across my cheek when I don't reply to her shouting. But I'm rooted to the floor, the blankets puddle around my feet, my hands trembling.

"I – I didn't know…", I manage to utter, but it's lost on her. All she wants is to scream, and cry, and break _me,_ so that she won't be the only one heartbroken.

"Shut UP!"

My new neighbor, who has taken over the Copes' apartment, peeks his head out the door, no doubt wondering about the noise and gasps when he sees us – a scantily clad loser and a feral mother, one silent like death and the other with a voice that could terrify the devil himself.

We both turn, Maria and I, and he disappears at the blink of an eye from her scorching stare and my pleading, teary eyes.

Salt water stains my cheek, but it only seems to spur her rage.

"But you know what? You don't get to ruin our marriage anymore. You don't get to see him, ever again!" she shouts, but her knees buckle beneath her, sending her to the floor in a heap of sorrow, anger, and despair. I follow suit, not knowing what else to do, and try to…reassure her? But my hand upon her shoulder does not ease her pain, and her body shakes with the sobs sounding from her chest.

"Jasper…Jasper…Jasper…" she chants, his name so tender on her lips, with a love I _thought _I'd felt, but now, hearing her, it fades in comparison. Her words choke on her tongue, "No," and I wrap my arms around her, trying to find _something _to say, but all that comes out is a broken _shhh_.

"He," she hiccups. "He said…he lied…I didn't know…God, why did he do this to me-he? And now he's go-ho-ne!"

She breaks away from me, and wiping away the tears from my eyes, she _looks _at me. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know what I was going to say when I came here…I just… We live in Jersey, and Jasper has always kept a small apartment here for his art shows and all that. My dad always said he'd never amount to anything, so he was just trying to prove him wrong, but… I didn't know what he did here. He was never gone for long, just a few days and the occasional trip to take pictures… but then, he didn't come home. God, he didn't come home!

"When was the last time you saw him?" she asks me.

"A few weeks ago. He, uhm, he was supposed to be back pretty soon, but he didn't show…" _and I was left in loneliness, unknowingness, wondering when the man I loved would come back to me so I could shower him with kisses. _"No, he didn't come back. Did – did something happen?"

I fear the worst.

She nods, new tears welling. "He came home, two weeks ago – after a trip in Wisconsin – and he was _fine. _Then, he was going to meet his agents or whatnot, but he _promised _he'd make it back to Gracie's ballet recital. She's only six, and she dances like a star, and he _promised _he'd be there for her. But, he didn't… He didn't show and I was so a_ngry, _and I called his cell phone. He didn't pick up, and I – I yelled at him, for being such a massive _asshole_ that when he wasn't there for me, at least he could be there for his _kids._"

Dread boils inside of me, listening to her story.

What comes next?

"And then a few days went by, and I didn't hear anything…I got scared. I was so scared, and then…and then."

"Then?"

She looks at me, her eyes wide and devastated, shining with remorse and heartache.

"They found him two blocks from here, three days ago…in an alley."

-.-

"_You selfish little girl, you caused this!"_

"_You're not my daughter anymore."_

"_Get out!"_

_-_.-

Across from me, no more than twenty feet from where I'm standing, I see three little girls with curly hair; two blondes and one brunette. They're all petite, even covered in thick wool coats that reach their knees, but their height varies. One is so little that she yanks on her mother's jacket to pick her up, while the other two stand side by side by their mother, holding on to her. Their faces are distraught, little tears falling one by one down their rosy red cheeks.

It's cold, the wind harsh and unrelenting on this foggy Sunday.

Their mother stands like a rock, never wavering, consoling her little girls when their weeping draws the sympathetic stares of family and friends. Although her body stands solid, her face is in agony, her crystal eyes hollowed and hurting – she looks so much older than thirty.

Then there is me, standing away from those who were closest to him, who knew him and cared for him since he was born – because now I know, I didn't know him at all. Where I thought he was just another artist trying to make it in New York, I now learn that he had lived a double life; caring for a family back in Jersey.

He was a two-faced, backstabbing asshole with no respect for other people's feelings, for their self-worth, or their lives. No, he was a cheater, a liar, a class-A jerk who thrived on messing with other people's lives. And he was…so tender when he kissed me, so caring when he touched me, so loving when he whispered words in my ear when he made me come. He made me feel beautiful, like I was the only girl in this world, always teasing me and reassuring me that I was _beautiful _and special.

He was everything I should resent, yet I can't stop the tears that flow freely down my cheeks or the hollowness that carves itself into my heart and soul; emptying me more and more. I feel like a porcelain doll, all fragile and breakable on the outside, with nothing but air on the inside. One fall, and I'm gone.

Maria may have listened to me in the end, and heard my side of how I honestly never knew she even existed, but in the bigger picture it doesn't really matter. I am, and will always be, _the other woman _who helped turn their marriage into a sham. She was kind enough to tell me when the funeral would be held, so I took the bus out to Jersey this very morning, fearful of what I would feel when I see his body lowered into the ground. So, here I stand, watching as a mother and her three little daughters toss the first handfuls of earth onto an oak casket – and I can't name the feelings I feel.

Shame?

Loss?

Hurt?

Devastation?

Heartache?

All I feel is...empty.

Who will tell me I'm beautiful?

Who'll poke my ribs and make me laugh with silly jokes?

Who…who will be there on the end of the day and make me feel whole?

Without Jasper, there is no one else there for me…

I skip the reception, and take the first bus home to Brooklyn, maneuvering through the mass of bodies that don't know a thing. When they pass me, they see a ghost. It feels like they are looking through me, because what am I to them? _Nothing. _

_And I am nothing. _

"_Killer."_

"_Murderer."_

"_Selfish."_

Mommy, daddy; they don't want me…but I call them, fruitlessly, only to hear the dial tone yet again when I say my name. I hear their cheerful "Hello", and then nothing, because to them, I am _nothing. _

I have _no one. _

_No one _needs me.

No one _cares._

So no one will ever mourn me now as I climb up the stairs to the roof, where I'd once peeked at the stars in between moans while Jasper fucked me on the roof floor, but now here I stand, silent, frozen, with my head tilted up. I stretch, I yearn, I look down two-hundred feet that ends in a dark alley. Filthy.

For minutes – or hours, I'm not sure – I stand there and just _feel. _I feel the cold November breeze on my skin, I feel the sounds of the city overpower my senses, intoxicating my mind like a sweet drug. _Adrenaline._

One step onto the ledge, one step closer to death.

A sigh.

Resignation.

My mind makes its final goodbyes, thinking of Tyler, where he rests in heaven, and I pray that God will have mercy on my soul.

"Such a pretty little thing – what could possibly have you on the edge of death?"

I gasp, and fall backwards from the ledge, bracing my fall with my hands. They sting. They bleed. "Ouch."

The source of the voice inhales deeply from behind me, like he's standing just inches away from me, and when I turn my head to the side, he is.

Suddenly, fear surges through my vein, ready to attack – and give in.

"You should be careful, killers are around to hurt you."

His voice is deep, manly, and yet it makes my insides melt.

I get to my feet, and turn. I wish I hadn't. He face is hard, full of angles, yet angelic. His mouth partially open, his eyes penetrating and green, Despite his inviting face, I can't shake the feeling that he wants nothing of me but pain, that he is here as an angel of death.

His head cocks to the side, scrutinizing me. _Kill me, please. _

"You smell…familiar."

What?

"Yes, I have…ungh, I have smelled you before. Recently. God, you smell absolutely delicious. Who was he again? He tricked me; he smelled like you, but his blood didn't taste nearly as good as I'd thought. I'll drink your blood with the utmost pleasure."

This is too much for me to take in. Smelled me? Drink my blood? This man is off his head ! I only want him to kill me, to end my pain, not recite his life story. My own is all I can handle at this point; what caused his nuts to fall off the cracker is none of my concern.

"Kill me, please, just kill me."

But he doesn't, he simply regards me instead, circling me, stepping back and staying three feet away from me. Sniffing the air. I don't understand.

"Oh yes, I have had you before," he states, stopping once more and stands straight-backed and strong. Absolutely lethal. A predator. My undoing and my savior at once. "It was the blonde, with the camera."

My heart stops beating.

He…_killed _Jasper?

No!

Oh please.

My tears start to fall.

I killed Jasper. I caused it.

His words register in my mind slowly; _smelled like you, tricked me. _And it means only one thing to me; I caused my lover's death and because of me, three little girls lost their daddy, and a wife is now without her husband, never to see him or talk to him again.

"He seemed like an eager little champ, clicking away on his little camera, not even noticing that I was standing right behind him, taking in that delicious smell. He didn't notice, not at all, until I bit into his neck."

He's smiling, like he's lost in a memory so tender and loving, while my knees buckle and scrape against the gravel ground. I fall forward, my white knuckles grasping my hair so tight, rocking back and forth in despair. Please stop, stop talking.

"He smelled just like you. His scent was just that good. And now I've found the source."

"Stop," I finally whisper quietly, and for some reason, he obeys. "Don't talk. Just, don't say that I killed him as well."

"As well? Ah, so you are an angel of death, little girl? Your wake leaving behind fallen foes and fiends, like mine? I suppose you deserve to be put up for justice then. A court, of sorts."

_I killed him too. _

_Oh Jasper._

_Oh Tyler. _

_Kill me, please, I deserve to die. _

"Oh little girl, I am the judge," he sneers, stepping closer to grasp my neck with his hand, his thumb brushing over my chin, and whisks me to my feet. "The jury," He bends in deeper, and I can feel his breath fan over my face. God, how sweet it is. And God, how ghastly. "And the executioner."

His white teeth catch the light of a lamp, glinting sharp and lethal.

It's the last thing I see before I close my eyes, and wish for my death to be quick.

-.-

"_You should have died. It should have been you. __Not him."_

-.-


	4. A could touch

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter:** 4. A could touch; the reaper's hand on your flesh

**Rated:** M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta:** mephis1

**A/N: **I think you all know who the person at the end was...most of you at least  
>gave that impression...additional AN at the end.

-.-

The wind _whoosh_ around us; the only sounds there is to be heard. My breath is caught in my throat, as is his hand – cold like ice on New Year's Day back in Washington, strong like iron, hard like granite

Yet, I'm still able to think.

My heart is still pumping.

My chest wheezes for air, strangled but able.

My eyes are shut tight.

Then he speaks, cold and withdrawn, yet curious.

"You welcome death so dearly? So peculiar for a woman in the prime of her life and so obviously beauty. What has you so torn, that you'll willingly leap into Death's arms?"

I'm not sure if he wants me to reply, but then again he'd have to ease his grip on me to do so, and he doesn't seem in any rush to do so. I continue to struggle against his grip, my feet kicking on their own accord to be freed. Suddenly I am released, and I fall to the ground, a stinging sensation running through my knees as they take my fall. I gasp for air, my lungs aching, and I hold onto my heart as it continues to race.

It's still beating.

_Kill me. _

My tears pool, slipping down my cheeks, one by one.

Why doesn't he end this pain in my heart? Why does he continue to make me suffer? _Jasper. His rough hands on my body, tender and caring, hard and strong. _With my eyes closed, the pain the man inflicts upon me is not physical, but emotional – my tender heart is barely in one piece.

Who has not broken my heart?

Mom.

Dad.

Tyler.

Jasper.

They all left me, abandoned me, and now here I am kept from my peace.

The man still stands there before me, just inches away, and I'm roughly brought to my feet. I struggle to keep my balance on my battered legs, and another tear slips down my cheek. His hands circle my arms, tearing into them. If I survive this encounter, there will be a bruise. But I doubt it. I hope I won't see dawn's early light.

He is silent, and I'm thankful my bladder is empty, because his eyes are terrifying. All forest green and abyss black irises, framed by untamed brows. Just that portion of his face is enough to make my blood curl, but then my eyes travel down a long narrow nose to a mouth with red lips open.

I blink, shaking, terrified, mystified.

I don't understand. His words play in the back of my mind, churning away. _Who is this nut job? My scent? My blood? Taste me? Who is this man? What does he want from me? _

Release me.

Relieve me.

Set me free!

Give me peace!

I try to speak, but his thumb, like marble, brushes over a spot on my throat and all that comes out is a strangled cough. It pains me. Burning.

Then my knees, yet again, scrape against the ground as his hand suddenly disappears. They're fleshy, bloodied, filled with peddled stones and filth. For a second I am scared of infections, amputations, but the context of the situation pulls me back in.

I'm alone on a roof with a man who's expressed his desire to…do what exactly? Taste my blood? Kill me? I'm unsure. And I…I…I _want _him to do it – it doesn't matter how, as long as it's quick and with as little pain as possible – sending me on my way to hell for eternal damnation.

Suicide is a sin, is it not?

The area is grey, sure – but of one thing I am sure – killers burn in hell, so Lucifer will be the man with the whip, torturing me until the world ends.

My tongue darts out and catches a stray tear. Salt with a hint of rust. I touch my lip. Blood. I'm bleeding. I gather up all I can find on my lower lip, sucking it in, and I hear a sharp intake of air. I look up. The crazy man is standing there with his eyes fixed on my lip.

I shake my head.

He's so strange.

So weird.

So scary.

His stance reminds me of the documentaries from Discovery Chanel, especially the ones on the predatory big cats of Africa. Lions. Jaguars. They are all grace and discipline, awareness and control. Yet, they radiate harm. And like those cats, I know he is capable of harm. A twig breaks and he's on your neck like _that. _So I say nothing, I don't move or breathe. Moments become minutes, and the wind continues to _whoosh_ around us.

Deafening.

"Do you not fear me?" he asks with bewilderment in his voice. "Why are you just sitting there, little girl, when you should be running for your life?"

"Because I have no life," I say dryly, although my insides are screaming for me to run.

He cocks his head to the side. "You are a strange one, little girl – pray tell, why would you run willingly into the arms of the reaper, when life is so valuable?"

_Valuable? _

_I have nothing!_

I manage to whisper what my heart cries, "Because he left me," and break out in sobs. _Because he lied, and cheated, and made me feel like I was his only one. I want to die because whenever I try to hope and see light, my eyes betray me. I stare into the hollowness of hell, and think I see the pearly gates. I am tired of being let down. _

"Just relieve me of my pain, please," I say with a shaky voice, and stare up at him through blurry eyes. His stance is too graceful to be human, but his crooked sneer is flawed. I can't figure him out, but fear paralyzes my ability to try. So I stay rooted to the ground, too shaken to move, and await his answer.

But instead of words, I am met with his hand yet again darting out around my throat.

Green eyes stare back at me, pearly white teeth glinting beneath the moon's light, and by God, he is beautiful. All angles, hard, soft. He's alluring, but he doesn't fool me – his hand around my neck is fatal. All he has to do is give an easy push and I'll be over the edge; a pretty girl dead on the ground.

"I want to," he says, but the questioning tone has me thinking he's talking more to himself than me. "Your scent…by God…never before have I smelled something as tempting."

Then he's silent, regarding me, before his grip on me tightens, and I am sure I'm turning blue. I can't breathe. I'm dying.

_Thank you._

-.-

When I wake, my head is spinning and I cover my mouth as nausea overcomes me. It hurts, like the worst hangover in my life, and for several minutes I just sit and hold myself, trying to will away the clump in my throat and the pending vomit.

My God.

Make it stop.

And then the pain starts to ebb away, carefully subsiding into the background of my mind. Lingering, but easy to ignore.

Then I take in my surroundings and gasp.

_No!_

_No, no, no! _

_He didn't kill me!_

_If he did, hell is a place of dark emptiness. No! I want the pain, the torture. I want my punishment!_

A small square room which makes me feel trapped. Dark walls and tarnished old wallpaper; with the hint of flowers from decade ago, but now filthy and peeling off in the corners. I glance at the floor, and wonder if underneath the black dust there's some sort of wood; because all I can feel on my hands is grime. I wipe it on my jeans, and see the stains, grimacing. _Yuck. _

Then there's the moon, shining in from the wide window with no drapes, all cracked and…like everything else: stained. I move closer to it, flinching with each step as I feel my knees burning. The flesh wound is still open, but not bleeding; my pants are blood-stained. When I reach the wall, I lean on the wooden sill and gaze out.

New York in nighttime is a strange thing.

Despite the danger lurking behind every corner and alley way, there is something exciting about walking down the streets in the greatest city in the world. Eccentric people, bold people, timid people, exotic people, "ordinary" people; this is where they all live; a stew of culture clashing.

It's adrenaline and calm all at once, knowing no matter what you will find someone to be with, something to do, all to your liking.

But beyond the horizon of skyscrapers, you know there is a world that's not meant to be here; that when you go home to your boring little towns, none of your peers would accept the person you are while in New York. You leave a piece of yourself behind; a part unchartered because you haven't had time to branch it.

All of this, I see beyond the cracks of the glass, feeling the draft chilling my bones.

I want to go back out there!

I want to flee!

I want peace.

I want…death.

Unsure of how much time has passed, I reach the conclusion that it is still the same night as this…_event_…begun. The clouds are transparent on the high heavens, not that different from when I held my head high on the stroke of midnight, ready to offer my soul to the reaper.

He found me.

He didn't take me.

_Damn him. _

Then it all rushes back to me, knocking the air from my chest. I stagger. I stumble.

_Jasper._

_Maria._

_Funeral._

Oh God, the pain is too much for my heart to bare, but the flashbacks is front and center in my mind, black and white in slow motion, filming my memories slowly behind my eyes.

_Rooftop. _

_The dark abyss. _

_Distraction._

_Predator. _

He said blood, heart, scent, pulsing…

I begged him for death! I begged him for peace, and he tricked me! He closed his hands around my throat, making me believe my life would finally end, and then… Then what? He brought me here? But how? How could none of my neighbors have seen the stranger carry my unconscious body down the many flights of stairs? How can he have made it down the street without Lady Sanders cutting his head off for harming me?

How?

How?

Then it dawns on me; that not only is it easy to be invisible in the shadows, but that no one will notice me gone.

I've lost my main job, my co-workers never more than that; people I worked with.

Billy's Bar – Sue, a pseudo friend, who for not many weeks ago found me crying in the changing room, sobbing myself to extra shifts. She never did like me; called me a brat on my first day on the job. Through years and hectic nights, we tolerated each other, stole each other's drinking patrons, gritted teeth and bumped shoulders. She'll be grateful when I don't turn up for my shifts, happy to finally be rid of me.

Then who's left?

The Copes are dead.

Jasper's dead.

My parents _want _me dead.

No one will file a missing person's report…except for my landlord when I don't make my monthly payment, but that's weeks from now! I don't even know if I'll be alive!

Oh God!

I fear for my life, and my blood freezes when I hear the door behind me creak.

No sound.

No breathing.

He doesn't make a sound, and yet, I know he's there.

Waiting.

A tear slips from the crook of my eye, and I grip the sill until my knuckles turn white, awaiting his next move. Another hand around my throat? My arms? Oh God, what if he… I shudder at the thought. No, I will not create scenarios in my mind that belong in the opening scenes of crime shows on TV.

A body covered by a white sheet, revealing battered skin before turning away in disgust.

No. That will _not _be me.

Not now.

Not here.

Not with _him. _

"Who are you?" I ask, my eyes never straying from the view of the window.

"What."

I jump. His voice is so close, too close. I hadn't expected it. How can he move so stealthily, with no sound of footsteps or breathing?

I squeeze my eyes shut, not knowing what to expect, but prepared for anything.

Time passes, my hands tremble and I desperately want to flex them, but I'm afraid to let go. This sill is my lifeline. Let go, and I surrender to this stranger.

'_Isn't that what you want?' _a voice creeps, _'Do you not long for death?'_

I don't know how to answer. My vision of my death did not look like this.

"'_What' _am I, little girl, that is what you should be asking," he says with calm, but on the same time a forcefulness that keeps me from asking what he means. _What_? Like…what kind of serial killer? Rapist? What kind of weapon he will use to kill me?

_What is he?_

_The man who's abducted me!_

"Where am I?" I whisper so low I can barely hear it myself.

"Somewhere. Nowhere. Everywhere," he taunts. "Does the location really matter to you? You asked for death, does it require a rooftop before you're satisfied? Paris? Leningrad? Liverpool?"

"St. Petersburg," I say on reflex, correcting him. _It hasn't been called Leningrad in eight years! Even I know that._

"They changed the name again? Those Russians never could make up their mind."

I detect melancholia in his tone, but don't ask him what he's talking about. Doesn't he pay attention to the news? I was just a teenager, but the Cold War affected us all in some way, some more than others, but it was still a lingering question in the back of everyone's mind, wondering if there would be a third world war erupting.

"Are you afraid yet?" he asks then, his voice creeping closer, whispering in my ear.

To this, I say nothing, although my mind and body scream _Yes!_

"Oh, little girl, your body betrays you. Your heart is speeding, thumping hard. Don't you hear it? It's calling. Singing to me, '_take me'_."

_And you're insane._

"Go sleep little girl," he coos, putting his hands on my shoulders and weighing me down. "I have yet to figure out what to do with you. So sleep and rest your mind. It might be your last chance.

The door slams shut behind him, and yet again, darkness envelopes me, but the safety I'd once sought there was now gone; lost in the shadows of death before me, where my outstretched hand disappears and my eye sight works just as well as behind closed lids.

Blinded.

Cut off from the living, but not yet dead.

_Yet. _

I don't understand why I'm still here, breathing, my heart beating, when his chance had been planned by faith. Why did he cut the lines to the puppet master, and string his own chords? Why did he alter my destiny, when peace was not far from my reach?

Damn him.

Damn him to hell.

Damn this place, this darkness, this inability to end my life!

-.-

I'm asleep with my back against the wall when a shattering noise startles me awake, my nerves going on high alert.

Shouting.

Screaming.

Glass breaking.

Things falling over.

Then a loud crash, a groan, and the door is pushed open. It bounces off the wall, leaving a distinct mark where the handle hit, and I am faced with a demon.

I was prepared for the one from the roof, he with red hair and green eyes, his sneering in my ear that makes my blood curl in my veins. But instead I curl inwards as a giant man fills the doorway. I don't know what's more intimidating; his bare chest huffing and puffing, his stance similar to the red-head's earlier tonight; ready to pounce, or his eyes; radiating fury...and wanton.

His eyes are fixed on me, like I'm easy to spot in this black dark room. If it wasn't for the moon light from the window, I wouldn't see him at all, but he's there. Lethal. Predator. Again, I fear for my life. Now more than ever; because this one is far more terrifying than the one who kept me from my death.

"Stand!" he shouts, and I obey; scurrying to my feet in haste. _Don't piss of the angry killer_, I tell myself...but then, _how do I even know he's a killer? _But what else should I think? If he's friends with the red-head, then surely he's bad news.

A white sheet flashes in my mind, and I cringe. Why did I ever watch Law and Order?

"Edward," he shouts next, and the red head appears next to him in a split second, nursing his arm. Is he hurt? Why do I care? What are they planning to do to me? "Did you really not think I'd find out, _brother?_ Her heart beat is the only one here tonight!"

"Sire," Edward says with a bowed head and submissive stature, "I didn't intend for this - "

"Silence! Don't try your pathetic excuses on me, _brother_. You don't get to keep her, you know that. I don't hold house for pets, I'm not fucking French. Either fuck her and kill her, or just drain her right now. If not, I'll do it myself," the man warns, and I think I might die from fear alone. No 'draining' required, or necessary, I think the blood has already left my body.

"Sire," Edward tries again. "Let's go and I'll explain. Believe me, I have no intentions of keeping the girl. She's dessert."

"Dessert?"

"Dessert."

The one Edward calls 'Sire' seems to mull it over, and I try to move down the wall towards the window. They don't notice me, standing shoulder to shoulder shearing looks I can't decipher in the dark, so I move to a crouch, bending my knees under the window. Although I know we're in a tall building, it's better to try to escape than fold and give in. If I use my body strength, I'll break the glass and fall through it. Down. Maybe I'll get my wish of death after all; but by my own hands and means. Not by a second-hand insane murderer.

I look over my shoulder to see them sneering at each other, none of them noticing me, and I take a step back and prepare myself to leap.

Weight back.

Pounce.

I hit a brick wall, and bounce back and land on the floor. But it's not a brick wall, it's 'Sire', towering over me; dark and lethal. He sneers, his white teeth showing, sharp and glinting. His eyes change, and though it's hard to tell, I swear I see them change color.

He wastes no time in throwing me against the far wall, hurting my back, and clamping his hands down on my arm. Exactly like _Edward _did before, making me whimper as he presses down on the bruises. He inhales, loudly, burying his head in my neck, and I feel those sharp teeth on my skin.

They're cold.

I shiver.

Sweat forms on my forehead, my hands clam.

And then my fears are realized, feeling him _hard _against my hip. No. God, please No.

White sheet.

Bruises.

Blood.

I squeeze my eyes shut and pray. Never before in my life have I pleaded so much to God, never before hoping for him to be merciful. To exist. But then it strikes me; maybe God does exist, and this is my punishment. I murdered, so now I would suffer a death most excruciating.

Tyler.

_I'm sorry!_

"Such a nice smelling dessert you are, little human," he whispers in my ear, almost like a lover, but the reality behind his words keep me grounded. He wants to kill me! "My brother did a good choice with you. Maybe I was wrong, maybe we'll keep you for a little while." His hands drift up my wounded knee and I whimper. "Oh don't be like that. Behave, and I'll make you feel good."

"Please," I croak. "Don't."

"No?" he asks, like my words matter to him. I shake my head, crying silently. "Such a shame, you would have been a great dessert."

I'm tossed to the floor. I gasp. _Yes. Thank you! _

But the danger is far from over as my eyes open to see him standing over me again. And now I know; his eyes are crimson red.

For this, I don't close my eyes. I will watch as I die. I will greet the reaper.

Yet, I shake, as he closes in one step at the time. Slowly. Torturously slow. I hiccup, sob, my tears streaming down my cheeks like a wild river, and my last thoughts surround a little boy with brown eyes and light hair.

_I'm so sorry, Tyler. I love you. I didn't mean to kill you. _

Red eyes are on me, trained on my neck, and it dawns on me what these creatures have said. Drain me. Kill me. Blood. The scenario is too extreme to be true, so either I'm dreaming...or these men are not human. Of course they're not, their strength is more powerful than I've ever seen, moving with the speed of light, talking in tongues of blood and sires.

They're reapers, sent from the devil to harvest souls who are not deserving of life.

"Sire!"

"Join in, brother, I'll share."

"No!"

I blink, and the red head is in front of me, his back facing me, his stance...protective? But the other one is taller, towering over him as well, and I see his bewildered red eyes.

"What's wrong, brother?" he asks, almost growling. "Too selfish to share the goods of your harvest? I thought that was you duty, little farmer, to find the finest crops and present them to your master. Or am I mistaken, child of mine? Am I not the one who gave you_ life_? Either step aside and let me have her, or turn around and slay her yourself. If not, you know what I can do."

"I'm not afraid of you, _Sire,_" Edward sneers, and for the first time since I met him I see him not as a savior who'll present me death, but life. But still, I have my doubts, because it's obvious by the way they talk that they are...brothers, of sort. Some kind of companions. And I am, as they've so aptly put it, their meal.

Discovery Channel showed this; the cats crouched down ready to pounce on their prey; two of them going after the same gazelle, taking her down together; eating together. They worked as partners in crime, and who's to say these two reapers aren't just playing tricks on me?

Entertainment and food – the best satisfaction.

I am the meal.

I halt..._I'm the meal!_

I hold my tongue and let them bark at each other; frozen to the floor, my arms and legs aching from being thrown around like a rag doll. My tears have stopped; there's nothing left to be wept, only my dry heaving and racing heart.

"Prove it."

Two words and they're on each other. Fast and furiously, ripping and biting.

Snapping.

Tugging.

Pushing.

Growling.

Then an eerie howl, like the one that woke me, and they stop. _Edward _is defeated, lying on his bed by my feet, and..._his arm ripped from his body! Hanging limp from the hand of Sire... _

I try to hold back the nausea, but it's too much to take in, too much...and I empty my stomach on the floor.

"Human", the victorious barks, his face gloomy. "Since he's so adamant on keeping you, I'll let you take care of him. Take his arm to his shoulder, and it will heal on its own." He throws it to my feet, right between Edward and the puddle of vomit, and gives me a look so venomous and full of hate I think I might pass out. But he stalks out, slamming the door shut with a loud bang behind him. I exhale.

We're alone.

We're safe.

Edward is groaning, yelping, sounding so pained I think of the old dog we had when I was little.

Old Teddy was hit by a car when I was eight, and I still recall his pleading eyes when my daddy picked him up and carried him to the woods.

His hunting rifle firing.

Birds fleeing from the trees.

Me crying in my mother's lap.

We put him out of his misery.

"Get me the goddamned arm, little girl. You might be upset, but you're no sadist. I doubt you enjoy seeing me in pain. So get the _fucking arm_!" he shouts with a strangled voice.

I shuffle to my knees, wincing as I crawl over to him, picking up the arm with hesitation. Reapers. Demons. They can be pained? But how, how will this arm repair on its own?

Sliding the arm next to his shoulder, I see no blood, only black flesh oozing with a strange, clear liquid seeping from the wound. "Close your eyes, little girl," he warns. "This is not something pretty girls should see."

I shield my eyes, but peek through my fingers when he screams_. He's in pain! _His screams are louder than the whimpers of the dog, more terrifying than the rifle, and I gasp as I see the flesh connecting with a searing burn. The liquid rushes out from both exposed ends, and like hot glowing coal it binds the flesh. It only takes seconds, but it feels like hours, hearing his pained voice cursing words I've never before heard.

_"Hellige Maria og Josef! Faen ta! Faen, dritt, aaaaaah!"_

I curl up on the side, hugging my knees to my chest as he stops his yelling and breathes heavily. He continues to lay there, with closed eyes and a heaving chest, and I cry.

I want to go home.

I want this nightmare to end.

-.-

"_Get out of my home!"_

"_You don't belong here."_

* * *

><p>To answer a question I have a feeling some of you are itching to ask, in this universe the word 'Sire' only means father, as in changer. The definition of Sire in Archaic form is <em>addressing a superior, a male ancestor; forefather, <em>and this is what I've chosen to define it as. Although I'm well aware that in the "vampire world" you cannot dispute your Sire, there is no 'magic bond' between the vampires in this story that denies Edward the ability to stand up to his changer.

I hope that answered any of your questions!

_"Hellige Maria og Josef! Faen ta! Faen, dritt, aaaaaah!" = "Holy Mary and Joseph! Fucking shit! Fuck, shit, aaaaaah"_


	5. Between the living and the dead

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **5. Between the living and the dead falls the shadow

**Rated:**M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **mephis1

**A/N: ***Chapter title inspired (but only semi-quoted) by T.S. Eliot's "_The __Hollow __Men__"  
><em>and the amazing story "_Sleepers __Awake: __Wachet __auf __ruft __uns __die __Stimme__" _ by _Feisty Y. Beden__  
><em>which I recommend to all of you!

-.-

There's no telling how long I've lain on my side, wishing for sleep to take me, but the moon settles and the sun's orange light kisses the sky in the early dawn. Stars are still visible on the heavens, with no disruptions from foggy clouds. It's a beautiful morning, but I can't find it in me to truly appreciate it.

Memories of sitting on the fire clenches my heart, visualizing Jasper with his concentrated look and the constant _click_ing of his camera. His brows used to furrow when the sun would hit me in the wrong angle, or something about the background was disturbing the rest of the photograph, but he'd always be gentle when correcting my pose. _'Move __a __little __to __the __left, __baby.__- Lift __up __your __chin.__- Ruffle __your __hair.__-__ Don't __smile __so __wide, __baby. __I'm __going __for __wreckage, __not __beauty.'_

On mornings like this, I would bake bread and break out in silly songs when Mr. Cope opened the door. I'd excuse myself from a cup of green tea with Mrs. Cope, but relent when she threatened to raise herself from the couch. She already had a replaced hip, and she knew I was scared of her injuring herself even more, and therefore used it against me all too often. But it was how we played, teasing and tugging. Carefree banter lacing serious undertones.

There are no undertones here, only darkness staring me right in the face.

I wish for that silver lining, but I am blinded.

"I thought humans always longed for sleep," Edward croaks from the floor, just a few feet away from me. He sits up, curling his back, and rests his head on his knees. His voice is still strained, and I can't imagine the pain he must have suffered when 'Sire' tore his arm off...

Jesus, listen to me! _When __Sire __tore__his __arm off. _That just doesn't happen!

I refrain from answering, turning my head to look out the window.

"Not in the mood to talk?"

I shake my head softly, barely moving.

Stars are fading and the sun is inching its way up the sky, rays of light beginning to light up the room.

"You're too calm," he states. "Why...you attempted to kill yourself mere hours ago, even tried to throw yourself out a window, and now nothing?"

"Fine," he grumbles. "Come here then. Take off my shirt."

I whirl my head around, screeching, "What?"

He merely chuckles. "I can't move my arm properly, little girl. I need to take off my shirt and...well, break the arm on in the right angle. You were good, but one bone is misplaced."

I gape at him.

He wants to break his own arm?

"You're insane."

"And you're helping me. What's your point?" he blinks, completely serious. Then he continues to eye me, until I relent, and reach for his shirt. It's just a normal sweater, grey and cotton, and it states just how ridiculous and insane this situation really is.

I'm helping a man with brutal strength and blood thirst take off his shirt so that he can re-break his arm.

_Insane. _

He manages to ease his left arm through the sleeve himself, but looks to me once it's time to get the left arm through it. The broken arm. The severed arm. I'm forced to touch him, and can't help but let my eyes drift over his torso. Muscular, toned, hard. My fingers graze his skin and it's cool, like a breeze, and somehow soft through the hardness. But I don't let him see how he confuses me, and will my eyes to the task at hand.

Once his arm is freed from the cotton, he suddenly pushes me away. I gasp. Three granite fingers on my ribs bruise my skin, and I fall on my back five feet away. With my head still spinning, and my surprised breath still shaking, my heart thumping, I hear a crack and a whimper, and then nothing.

I daren't move, and for minutes, or maybe hours I do not know, I only breathe.

Then I sit up, wincing at the new bruises and blink from the rays of sun now blinding me, and see him cowering, seeking coverage in the last falling shadows, before he slips out. Alone. Lone. Like a single star on the morning sky, but unable to twinkle.

A tear slips away, as my soul begins to fade, and I pass out on the hard, filthy floor, my arms hugging my ribs.

-.-

I wake yet again to an alarming noise, but after minutes to recoup from my disarray I conclude it was the door slamming shut. Next to me is a tray of food; an orange box and a subway. Ham and cheese, tomatoes. I hate tomatoes, and pick them off, and gulp it down in mere minutes.

Strange thing is that I grow more hungry with each bite and practically inhale the damn thing, downing the orange juice between bites. The bread is crisp and golden brown, straight from the oven. It can use a hint of salt, but other than that I love it. It reminds me of early mornings and gluten…

It reminds me of Mr. Cope, and then Mrs. Cope.

My breakdown.

The dawn.

_Maria. _

I look down on the subway wrapper and feel like I have to through up again and quickly hold a hand over my mouth. I look around frantic to see if there's anywhere to…well, to throw up. But there's nothing here, only a dusty room and a window.

Nothing.

Not even last night's vomit.

I look at the spot I tarnished during the fight and frown. Who cleaned it up? The same person who brought me food? Was it Edward? Or did that mountain of a man come back here? No, that's too unlikely; he didn't strike me as the type to come and clean up after other people. Then again Edward didn't either. Cocky, off-putting, scary; not nurturing.

Then I realize…this is food. Nutrition to keep me alive.

Sire had spoken of killing me.

The fight.

The broken arm.

The push, the pain, the strained but placid atmosphere afterwards.

Edward's strong voice splitting the air. _"__No!__"_

I stare at the door with my mouth agape…He brought me food. Or, someone did.

_Fuck __him,_I think. Who is he to take care of me? Who the fuck is he to even speak to me?

I let out a scream of frustration and punch the wall.

Anger boils up inside me as a splitting pain runs through my knuckles, to my hand, to my wrist. I stare at it, white and clenched, and a sick smile makes its way across my face. Teeth show through wide lips, and I hit the wall again.

And again.

And again.

I turn frantic and the wall is my only object to lash out on. The wall paper with a faded floral theme. Underneath it are grey walls. The print of my fist remains.

My eyes have sobered, and no more tears flow as I scream, grunt, and groan. I huff – punch – retract and re-fist, my thumb firm and secure against my middle finger. Punch. Punch. _Punch!_

A small break, a small crack, and I fall to my knees. My head falls against the wall and I clench my eyes shut.

Feral.

Furious.

Jasper would have loved the passion.

Tyler would have been scared of my outburst.

My parents would be baffled.

Edward…smirking. Cocky bastard. He's the reason I'm here…and not with Jasper.

The sound which escapes my throat is strangled, something between a howl, a whine, and a growl. It's haunting, and it's the only sound I hear inside my head as I hug my knees.

I want to go home.

-.-

"_Get out of my house!"_

"…_and never come back. You're not wanted here anymore."_

-.-

I've tried the door a thousand times. The first time it refuses to budge, I'm angry. The second time, frustrated. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and then seventh time, it is all in vain hope. Then I start banging on it with closed fists, in the belief that maybe someone on the other side will hear me. That maybe someone will come and rescue me. But there's nothing, only the sound of my heavy breathing.

I rest my forehead against the door and keep a hold onto the door knob.

I close my eyes.

I try to listen for movement on the other side.

I'm alone.

-.-

"Hey, someone, someone help me!"

"Please, someone!"

"Hello, is there someone out there?"

"Helloooooo!"

"Please."

A whisper.

A whimper.

Defeated.

-.-

My bladder is about to explode. Literally. I've been keeping it in for six hours, I think, or something along those lines. Along with the rumbling in my famished stomach, there's the throbbing between my legs. Thumping. Thumping. Excruciating torture.

I want. To fucking. Pee!

It's dark again, the sun just settled behind concrete towers, and frightening shadows are surrounding me.

I stare at the door again, anger furrowing my face and I speak out loud, firm and steady, hoping someone will hear. "Please, I'm not asking for much, I just want to use the bathroom. You can even be in the room for all I care; I just need to pee like a racehorse. Please? You can bring me straight back…just, please."

There's nothing, and I drop my head in disappointment. It won't be long, but if it comes to it, I will not piss in my own pants. The far corner, maybe… what else can I do?

There's a click and a twist, and the door slowly creeks open. It's old and needs a coat of oil, and stops only to reveal an inch from the other side. I see nothing, so I stand up and approach it. I can't hear the sound of footsteps, so the person who opened it must still be on the other side. With shaking hands, I grasp side of the door in my hands, feeling the tethered old wood beneath my hands, and pull it open.

It screeches the entire way, making me cringe from the sound.

Stairs.

Dark, narrow stairs.

I'm all alone, there's no one here, and it baffles me that I haven't heard the person who opened the door leave. I place my foot on the first step and hear the squeak beneath my shoe.

Surely I can't have missed that.

But the door was locked, that I'm sure of; I haven't been isolated long enough to have lost my mind just yet – so the fact that someone has managed to slip up these old steps without sound, and disappear just as swiftly is just… scary.

The air is laced with an eerie chill.

There's no light, and what I can see is all thanks to the moon behind me. I press my hands against the wall on either side and continue down the steps.

Thirty.

Thirty steps.

Squeaky, dusty.

The third from the top is rotten through and breaks beneath my weight. I gasp and press my hands hard against walls to steady myself.

At the end, there's another door and it opens with a similar creeking sound, and on the other side there's a hallway. Like everything I've come across in this place, it's dark and old and the floorboards creek as I slowly make my way across it.

Two doors are on the left side; none will open.

Three are on the right side; two are cupboards filled with spiders and dust.

The third is resistant, but budges after one final tug.

A bathroom hides on the other side; the sink stained with rust and unidentifiable black muck, the floor that once had probably been white tiles are cracked and ruined, an old tub stands opposite the sink that I'd rather not go near with its foul stains. At last, on the far wall, a toilet, and though it looks rather suspicious, I'm on the brink of exploding, and quickly undo my pants.

I hover over it, not touching the seat, and tip my head forward in sweet relief.

-.-

Looking down both sides of the hall, I ask myself what I want to do. Go back to that wretched room, or attempt an escape?

The former is safe…it's what I know; the faded wallpaper and an old layer of paint beneath it that I can sit and chip off little by little, the view of the city in the distant, the shape of the moon and the floorboards.

The latter is the unknown, the fear of dangers, but also holds the hope of freedom. If I escape, I can go home.

Home.

_Where the hell is that? _

Despite the fears lurking in the depths of my chest, I rush down the hallway, moving fast but stealthily. I keep close to the walls for safety and let my hands and feet guide me down another two flights of stairs. I halt when I hear a moan ripping through the air. Curiosity takes over my body and I open a door. It's silent, soundless, and I gasp slightly at the sight before me, but the sounds of heated flesh, raspy moans, and skin slapping against skin, they lure me into the lion's den.

I stand still, feet pressed to the floor, peering through the crack in the door at the scene unfolding: pleasure is thick in the air, and a rush of excitement evokes something deep within me as I watch. God, I should be disgusted, and I am deep down, but it's twisted and erotic, making my skin tingle and throat water.

I swallow.

My heart races.

The flesh between my thighs tingles.

Sire is striding over a broken down couch, and it's the first time I get the chance to really _see_ him. In the room upstairs, he had only been a demon towering over me, but now I see his form. Thick, toned muscles. Legs and arms and chest defined under the dim ceiling lamps. His hair curly and dark, swept across his forehead as he occasionally leans forward for a lick. Firm, full breast bouncing as a fair skinned beauty rides him.

Her fiery red hair is wild, and I can't help but feel aroused at the scene. They are raw, completely exposed, and loving it. Sire with his smirk; thin pink lips drawn up at the side, crooked, white teeth glinting. His eyes never leave the woman before him, and I'm internally relieved he doesn't know I'm here.

His hands are placed lazily on her ass, guiding her up, and down. Up, and down. Hard. Firm. All the way in. To the tip – he's god blessed – and then down again. Over and over.

Envy flows through me, watching them moan, but then, as the woman screams out in an orgasmic high, Sire turns vicious. He's frenzied, clamping his hands down on her ass; holding on with a death grip, and keeps her down as he fucks her hard. _Her_ screams are no more from pleasure, making me sober up, as _he_ groans and then _growls_ quickly bucking up his hips and burying his teeth in her neck.

Drops of blood escapes his mouth and trickle her neck and then down her back.

I stand still, frozen, horrified.

The girl is thrown aside like a rag doll when he finishes, standing up in a feral glory of pure sin and cruelty, licking his lip before exiting the room through a door on the other side.

My eyes fix on her as I can't help but stand frozen, not even breathing. It stings in my lungs, but I fear if I make a sound, he'll hear me. He'll see me, and I will become the girl on the floor. Her legs remain parted; naked, hair wild, body shining with sheen of sweat. I wonder if she's still warm.

How long has it been?

A second, two?

Fifteen minutes, maybe.

But there's one thing I don't understand, something I can't comprehend. Why…what just happened? And if he wounded her neck, why is there nothing pooling on the floor? So many questions fly around in my mind.

There's a crack, and a voice that splits through the thick air

"Curiosity killed the cat. Do you know what happens to little human girls when they wander in places they don't belong?"

_Edward._

I run.

Down the halls, up the stairs, my legs guiding me, slamming the squeaky door shut.

I'm confined to the dark room yet again, and shy away from the door and seek refuge by the window. The moon is crescent, and I wish I was that little boy sitting on its edge with a fishing rod dangling downwards to the earth.

I hear no footsteps, yet I know he's following me. And I'm right, the door flings open without a sound being made, yet I never turn away from the window pane.

I'm drowning, suffocated by the weight on my chest that clenches around heart and mind.

"What are you?" I whisper, terrified of his answer.

Demon.

Reaper.

Angel of death.

"Make your guess," he taunts, making me shiver. His voice is liquid black and a grave keeper's cackle.

"Something evil…I-I don't know."

He laughs, but it's twisted and wrong. His breath is by my ear, his nose briefly skimming the bottom of my neck. I repress a gag and a tear, bracing myself against the window sill. But he continues, inhaling, exhaling; a curse in every breath.

"You want to know?"

"Yes." _No. __Yes? _I shiver, my voice barely audible to myself, but he hears me anyway.

"Now come on, little girl _,_you really think I'd make this easy on you? Come on, guess; it's really obvious if you think about it. What do you know about me? What have you seen?"

I swallow thickly, trying to find my voice and my thoughts. "You – you're… I _don__'__t __know._"

His sighs in disappointment. I'm a failure. Again. "Are you that dense, little girl? Do I really have to spell it out for you? What is the one thing I've desired since I tracked you down? What is the one thing Sire told me to do with you? What did you just see him do to that girl? Come on, say it."

"He...He wanted you to…to _drain _me?" I state, though it comes out as a question. It's just too surreal to say, foreign words on my tongue, and I try to comprehend their meaning. Draining is something you do to slaughter animal, cows and rein and all that shit. Why would…

The moon turns hazy as tears gathers in my eyes.

I've gone crazy.

I'm dreaming.

A nightmare that doesn't seem to end.

It's the only explanation for why I come to this conclusion.

"_Vampire."_


	6. Reveal your secrets and hide your truth

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **6. Reveal your secrets and hide your truth.

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **mephis1

**A/N: **"_Conversations __with __my __killer__"_ by _Oracle __Vas_ is an amazing story  
>and doesn't follow Twilight's Canon Vamps to the spot either. It's a huge inspiration<br>for me and my writing, so I suppose this chapter goes out for Vas…Not that I can ever  
>compare to her Jasper's lethal attitude.<p>

-.-

There's something explosive in a moment where you come to a realization you never thought possible. It's something that tightens in your chest and makes your breathing staggered; a dawning that buckles your knees and renders your soul helpless.

A point in life when the only thing you know of becomes a lie, and lies become truth.

As a little girl, this darkness had frightened me; I had always been a princess on Halloween, because deranged faces and abnormalities had frightened me. I was rewarded for being adorable, while other children made adults jump and scream. Horror movies were not my scene.

Not that I've ever believed in the fake blood or plastic fangs, but… it's frightening. A side of life that is better off unexplored.

It all comes crumbling down around me.

His breath lingers around me, sweet and hot. His body remains stoic behind me, holding a tight grip on my arms. As if I would run, when I know what he is. As if escape is anything but fruitless, when myths say I'm a lost cause.

"I-I-I..."

My voice stumbles and stutters – I'm speechless for a long time. Clenching my eyes shut and my hands knuckle-white on the sill, I brace myself for the end. If he truly is what he says he is, then I will die.

_Not like this. Please, no, not like this. _

The image of the red-headed girl from before is imprinted in my mind. Screaming at me from the forefront of my memory, begging me to move my legs down the stairs and make a break for it. But I'm trapped; Edward's stone body keeping me between a rock and a hard place.

The window is unmovable, the daylight hours of today have been spent trying to push it open, but to no avail. It's stuck. And I'm four stories up from the ground. The street is abandoned and grey, not a single person has tracked the pavement or trespassed the small patch of grass below.

Alone in the world.

The only living.

My captor, immortal; walking dead.

_Vampire. _

"Cat got your tongue, little girl?" he sneers.

"Isabella."

Silence.

"What?"

"My name…My name is Isabella. You can cut the crap with the whole human shit. I get it; you're a damn vampire. You can at least know my name before you…drink my blood or whatever."

My own words surprise me, and I clasp my hand over my mouth immediately. Oh shit. What have I done?

But he laughs. Cackles. There's distance between us again, and I turn and lean back. The sill digs into my lower back, but I can deal with the lack of comfort. I cross my arms over my chest, attempting to look casual; unaffected, brave. It only seems to amuse him further.

He stands by the door, shaking his head as he laughs quietly. "I seem to have misjudged you, _Isabella,_" he confesses with emphasis on my name. "Or maybe not. Maybe you're just another foolish little girl. Tell me, Isabella, is it exciting poking the bear?"

I shake my head, my courage lost. I swallow thickly, my heart racing.

"But you're not brave at all, are you? You're afraid."

"Yes."

"Good. You should be."

His voice carries a hint of British in it, just an edge of light on the 'b', and new questions appear. He's a conundrum, alright, Pandora's Box of secrets and dangers. I'm so tempted to open it, to push up the lid and unveil the secrets it holds, but the threat that comes along with the itch of knowledge stops me.

Temptation might be great, but the fear of one's life is enough to stop foolish acts.

Or some foolish acts.

"Of course I'm afraid. You're going to kill me. Shouldn't I fear for my own life?"

He stares, green eyes brisling with the moon's light. Beneath the midnight sun, he is pale and distant. Near me, he is cold and alive. "You didn't fear for your life when you attempted to kill yourself; is the prospect of being murdered so different?"

_Yes. No. I don't know anymore. _

Yesterday's sorrow hollows my soul, but today's dawn has ignited a fire in my heart. I crave freedom. I want to run. _Live._Yet what do I have to live for anymore? Any attempt of rekindling lost family has been fruitless and left me broken every time, and the one who had been there to mend the pieces is now gone. Murdered. And both fractions are on account of my own actions.

Foolish actions.

Dangerous, lethal.

With vain intentions and deadly results.

But maybe this is salvation, my second chance to make things right. To set things straight. Maybe this man – _vampire_– has been to sent to save me so that I can save myself. I can do nothing but hope.

We are cast into a drawn-out moment of silence, and I feel uncomfortable. Beneath his lingering stare I am only human. Mortal. _Little __girl. _Yet he is a man, vampire, full of strength and beauty and cruelty.

"Why haven't you killed me?" I ask.

"Because I don't want to," he says, but sounds unsure. Doubt fills his features, angular cheekbones and chiseled jaw, and for several minutes he seems to be debating himself. "Ask me something else. Alec has expressed his disappointment in me already, so I see nothing wrong with bending his rules a little more."

"Who is Alec?" Again, he moves at the speed of light and appears next to me before I even have the time to blink. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Move so quickly. Why, when there's no haste?"

"You suggest I lower myself to mortal standards so that, what, you won't be startled when I walk? Is that it? My speed and strength surprise you, but the thought of ending your own life does nothing to affect you? Such a strange little human; I must say, you do surprise me."

"And you scare me. But you've yet to answer me; who is Alec?"

His eyes shift. Bowing his head he speaks low and hesitant. "You know him. I called him Sire. He is my father and changer. To him, I am his child, his brother in arms."

"Your changer? He's the one who made into…_this_?" I gesture with my hands, referring to him as he smirks, crooked and teeth glinting. He nods. "And for how long have you two been – as you say – brothers in arms?"

My question lingers in the air between us. He stands so close, intruding all forms of personal space. It's as if he doesn't sense my discomfort, my underlying urge to pull away with disgust and repulse. He doesn't look at me though, opting to peer out the window.

"A long time. Before you were born. Before your grandparents were conceived. Before an Italian swine took the credit for a Viking's discovering; this country's revelation of existence. Seven hundred years."

I stutter, "Seven _hundred?__"_

His eyes close and open to look at me. They're haunting, those green depths of mystery. "Give or take."

"So it's true that vampires are immortal… You live no matter what?"

I shift my weight and the floorboard creeks. Edward does the same but remains soundless. "I am immortal in the sense that age, disease, and other mortal causes of death do not affect me. A knife, under normal circumstances, will bounce right off my chest. But I do not live no matter what. There's a balance to be kept; where I continue to live, someone else has to take my place in death. It's just that simple."

"You live, so someone else has to die. Is that why you… kill?" Hesitant. Nervous. Don't aggravate your killer with pesky questions. "Because if you don't you'll die yourself?"

"No. Yes. We all have to eat, you know. My sustenance just comes in a slightly different form than yours. If you go without food, you get crazed and weak. Vampires are not so different."

A yawn rips through me, and Edward looks at me curiously. "What's wrong?"

"I'm tired," I admit, though hesitantly. "I've been up all day and night." Not to mention fatigue has tired me out, and all this talk of death was worn me down to the bone.

"Tired." He rolls the word around on his tongue, puzzled, brows furrowed and contemplating. "But you've slept. And ate. Why do you cut the day so short?"

"I'm _human, _as you keep pointing out. Have you forgotten what it's like?"

His eyes are lost, and then I cannot see them anymore behind his closed lids. The shape of his face remains hard and angled, but there's a change in it still. Underneath the surface, I see a weakness.

"You have, haven't you? You don't remember how it's like to live. Can you even remember the feel of warm sun on your skin?"

His eyes flash open, bristling, and he snaps. "_Sun. _Oh yes, I have felt its torturous heat more than once. Don't patronize me, girl, don't talk to me like you're old and the keeper of wisdom when you know of nothing that reaches further than the tip of your nose. You're nothing, nothing but a speck of dust."

I feel backhanded, and retrace his words. "You don't burn under the sun? I thought…well, the myth…I… You're gone during the day, isn't that when you sleep?"

Head cocked to the side, eyes curious and dancing, lips turned up to a crooked smile. I feel so little and unknowing; though I'm no scholar, I've never been stupid. But now I know nothing but the little information he provides.

"I'm immortal, and to make it worse, I can't sleep away half the day like your kind can. I'm awake at all times, but I have my restrictions. The sun, no, it does not burn my flesh or leave me in a heap of ashes on the ground, but it's my curse, still."

Silence. Furrowed brows. He thinks hard. "How shall I put it? Are you a fan of comics?"

I shake my head first, but then say "yes" under my breath, thinking back to when I was little and first started reading, how I loved the illustrations of Donald Duck and his friends.

"Think of Superman, how the sun would give him strength and too much darkness would weaken him. Turn it around, and you know how it's like for vampires. It drains us of all energy."

"It just makes you weak? Like you have to recharge after a day at the beach?"

The sound erupting from his chest is unnerving, and startles me. A bark, a laugh. It's disconcerting.

"Oh, little girl, how cute you are."

I feel an urge to slap his condescending face, the cocky smirk, but stay silent and listen – this may be my only chance to hear some truth from him.

"We don't go to the beach, are you stupid? I'll say this, if a vampire is put in the middle of a desert with hundreds of miles to the nearest shelter, he'd wish he'd burn. He'll run fast, but after a mile or two he'll start to slow down. Slower and slower until his knees buckle and he lies in the sand. He won't lose consciousness like a mortal, nor will he die of thirst…at first. When the day is done and the night comes, he'll still be lying there, trying to move, but unless the night continues on for days, he'll be in a constant state of pain.

Pain, _Isabella_, is what we think of when someone mentions the sun. It takes almost a week until he'll be able to stand and hunt; a week in darkness with a constant access to blood."

I sink down the wall, my head lulling slightly as I the sleep which tries to overcome me, but it's futile.

I'm exhausted.

I want to go home

I want a comfy bed and clean sheets.

But instead my head falls to rest on my knees, and Edward's words hardly register, but I hear them, and they haunt my dreams.

_"__But __it__'__s __almost __impossible __to __hurt __a __vampire, __and __any __attempt __always __ends __in spilled __blood.__" _

-.-

There's a rusty nail.

I found it the day after the long conversation with Edward. My captor.

I scratch it against the floor board under the window.

Seven.

Seven scratches and seven days.

It feels like a routine, but what I once found relaxing is now mere torture. I wake up early every day, just as the sun rises, to find that same sandwich and orange juice waiting for my by the door. Sometime after noon (or I think it's noon, I can't read the sun's position like a boy scout but I always reckon it's the middle of the day) the door slowly opens. There's no other sound, no breathing or footsteps, but I sense the underlying threat that hangs heavily in the air.

Red-head on the floor.

A trickle of blood.

Her screams.

I don't want it to be me, and I've yet to think of another way out, so I never venture further than the filthy bathroom.

The trips are disgusting, but it's a need I can't forego so I shove down my trepidations towards the filth and the smell and the rust, and do my business. It's not humane to have only one bathroom visit a day, but I haven't seen my warden since that night. Since he told me so much.

I'm angry at myself for not being able to stay up, but I had also thought he'd be back the next night.

No sight of him yet.

I'm restless and moody with no one to hash out on. I have nothing to do. I'm going insane.

Yesterday I started talking. No one was there, and I didn't scream for help, but talked. To myself. One could say I was voicing my thoughts, but in reality I just wanted to hear something, even if it was my own raspy voice.

Today I'm asking myself questions. It's mundane things, like what my favorite color is or my happiest memory, but each questions renders me silent for several moments before I find something to say.

"_I have a baby picture of myself where my eyes are blue. I know it's normal for most babies to have blue eyes, but when I was younger I used to be so mad that mine changed to brown. Tyler's eyes never changed; from the day he was born he always had those startling blue eyes all the neighboring wives would gush about. I always teased him about it, made him feel bad that he had mom's eyes and didn't look a thing like dad, but really I was just jealous. He stole my spotlight, or so I thought at the time."_

Today my one-to-none questions make me sad, and I almost stop, but then I'm crying and babbling and being incoherent even to myself. I don't make sense, but I say the words and everything washes up again.

The hurt.

The guilt.

The grief.

"Oh Tyler," I sob. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

The door creeks open, but I don't move from my spot on the floor. I'm lying on my side beneath the window where the sunlight doesn't shine, and I don't feel anything but the pain in my heart.

I hate myself.

I wish I could die.

_Why won't he just kill me? Why torture me like this when he can just kill me? I take it back, I don't care if he ends me like the red head, I only want this fucking pain to end. _

"I've seen carcasses with more life in them than you."

His voice fills the room and my eyes shoot open. The room is dark and my eyes take a couple of moments to adjust. Have I slept the entire day away? But then I realize it's not such a bad thing; whatever makes this hell pass faster.

I'm too angry and sad to respond to him. _Leave__me__alone__or__kill__me._

"No? Hmmm," he goes on, and though I keep my eyes on the floor I can still feel how he wanders around the room. My every cell is on full alert, but not from fear. No, not anymore, now I just feel that he is here, somewhere, with the intention to hurt but not kill.

"How did you meet…err, Alec?" I ask, the only thing that pops into my mind.

I don't even know why I ask, why I bother talking to him, but my curiosity never ends. Pushing myself up to a sitting position, I see him mirroring me on the other side of the room. It's a strange sight: a man, or, a _vampire_, acting so…human. His form is almost like a shadow of someone else, sitting perfectly still. But there's a thing sheen of moonlight right across his face; his eyes shine perfectly green.

When he begins speaking, they look dead. His tone without emotion, flat and boring, like he was holding a lecture on worms, contrasting himself.

"Alec was…a way out. I had already started coughing, blisters forming on my arms, when I went to drown my sorrows in moonshine. But I was thrown out; the townsmen shunned me at the first sign of illness, and beat me to a pulp by the fjord. There, in the dark hours of May month, I saw a man who terrified me. I mistook him for the man with the sickle, although rumors told of a witch in black – and he took me. I begged for mercy, and he granted me a life forevermore. Immortality".

_Immorality. _

But I don't understand half of the things he says, his tongue switching and swapping on words that might as well be Latin. I only catch bits and pieces, through the mist of his explanations I get the gist.

"So he turned you into a vampire."

"I didn't understand at first, but yes. There was that little challenge of the language barrier; a Roman and a Viking, so I couldn't understand what he tried to tell me; that the thirst for blood would never seize, and that I would never age, or be seen in the sunlight. But we traveled together, _my__brother_, we went to England, breached the barrier, and got closer."

"Sounds sweet."

_Wrong thing to say. _

He explodes, his hand grasping my throat before I have the chance to blink; I'm hanging from his hand against the wall. I gasp for air, but he is ruthless. "Don't. Fucking. Speak. Don't _ever_say that again, like we're buddies on the playground! Do you know just how many times I've ripped off his arms, how many scars he's left on my body? Do you know _Isabella,_how many little girls like you that I have taken into alley ways and drained of life? Do you fathom how close to death you really are? DO YOU?"

"No." I struggle to breath, and my words come out strangled. "I don't."

"Do you want to know?"

I can't handle that knowledge; seeing him as a predator and a murderer is something I try to avoid in my mind; instead seeing the _man_who took me from that rooftop and refused to let me die. In my mind I only see his green eyes, tender and caring, a figment of my imagination. If I start to see his hand tainted with the red blood of innocent victims, I will go mad.

_Even madder than talking to yourself?_

I shake my head.

His hand is gone and I gasp, struggling to breathe. My throat burns like the fiery pits of hell, and tears stream involuntarily down my cheeks.

Unhealed marks on my knees reopen, and suddenly I feel a warm trickle down my leg.

Everything goes quiet.

I look up to Edward. Predator. Lethal. He's in a crouch, knees bent, back curved, arms out, fingers curled. But his face… I can't see it. He's crouching down in front of me, back facing me, one arm slightly bent back. Shielding me.

My pulse is racing, my heart stuck in my throat.

_What is going on? _

It all happens in three seconds; from the initial silence, to the crouching, to the…

…door crashing open…

…a blur of limbs around me…

…shatters, growls, groans, howls…

…my back burning, knees bleeding…

…my scream piercing through the air…

"No!"

I see everything and I see nothing. Long black hair, a dark face, white teeth, ratty clothes. I see it, someone else; a stranger, but I don't understand. All I know is the fear pulsing through me as I sit, shocked, unmovable.

And Edward. Pushed up against walls, crushing the stranger beneath him, a hole, a tear, an arm by my side. Limbs strewn across the room.

One victorious.

One defeated.

One little human dying.

I'm lifeless, cold, my head on the filthy floor, staring up, coughing blood.

"E-E-Edwarrrd."

Silence.

My mother's voice echoing in my mind.

-.-

"_It __should __have __been __you. __It __should __have __been __you __who __died.__"_

* * *

><p>Kerry Delaney has made a magnificently bloody banner for this story. Link on my profile. Thank you, lovely!<p> 


	7. A room with a view, but no window

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **7. A room with a view, but no window

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **mephis1

**A/N: **This will be short, almost like a filler, but necessary still. I hope you like it,  
>though it only took me one evening to write it. *scratches head* I'm kind of nervous.<br>A rainy Sunday watching Jude Law and hot  
>Russians fighting for communism inspired this.<p>

-.-

_She's alive, don't fret. _

_Stop it brother, if she lives then she'll live. _

_Sire…I – _

_Brother. Alec. Why make me less when I am more? _

_My apologies. _

_She'll live. I know it, she's nothing like…_

_We left a long time ago, it's in the past. _

_And yet it replays itself on a new continent. _

…

…

…

…

…

_Her heart is fragile, what if…_

_Then it's up to you. What do you want from her?_

_I don't know. _

_Don't lie to me. I know you better than you know yourself. _

_You're right. But not yet. _

_Only when the heart decides to mumble instead of sing? _

_When there's no other option. _

_My brother: the self-appointed God. _

_Like you haven't taken the role of Hades yourself. _

Growl. Snarl.

_Hold your tongue or lose it. _

_Yes, _Sire.

…

…

…

…

…

I hear a song, a deep voice so melodic it makes my heart skip a beat. It stops, I stir, it continues on.

_Den fyrste song eg høyra fekk,  
>var mor sin song ved vogga.<br>Dei mjuka ord til hjarta gjekk.  
>Dei kunne gråten stogga.<em>

A voice like a sing-song tale, so sweet and sound, relaxing my bones.

Something soft beneath me, but strong. All around me, surrounding me, comforting me. I feel safe.

_Den vegen ser eg enno tidt  
>når eg fær auga kvila.<br>Der stend ein engel, smiler blidt,  
>som berre ei kan smila.<em>

Foreign words flow around me, the melody like a lullaby and the words so soft.

I hate myself for slipping back into unconsciousness.

…

…

…

…

…

_Has she woken again?_

_Not since last time. _

_If she doesn't wake up… don't the humans call this an unwavering sleep?_

_Comatose. Yes. If it's true, then it will be done. _

_Be certain, be prepared. Remember…Spain. _

_We have few continents to flee to if that happens; Europe is out of the question. _

_Africa too… _

Dry laughter.

_I don't suppose you want to go to Asia again?_

_I'd miss the milk…_

_Like nectar, it makes the blood sweeter. _

_Indeed. _

…

…

…

…

…

I'm cold, feeling alone, when their voices surround me yet again. I don't know how much time has passed, or where I am, but I zero in on low, deep voices. Soothing. Both. But one calls out to me, and it's closer than the other, wrapping around me in a cold embrace. Yet I feel warm inside when he speaks and sings. But now I hear no lullaby, instead a threatening growl erupts…I feel my back vibrate.

_Have you disposed of him yet?_

_I'm letting him suffer. _

_Even I think you're taking this too far. The others are talking._

_Let them talk. He almost killed her. _

_If he hadn't come, wouldn't you too have pounced and bitten?_

_No. _

_Don't be so rash in your answer, brother, her blood calls out to you as well. _

_She's more than blood. _

_So was Rosalía. _

Silence.

…

…

…

…

…

I slip.

I fall.

Backwards.

Around.

Lifeless.

Weightless.

I soar, yet I fall. I'm scared. Alone. _Mommy.__Daddy.__Help__me.__Tyler!_

But I am alone, cold, and I long for a song which I cannot find in the darkness.

…

…

…

…

…

_There, there, Isabella, wake up, wake up for me. _

I run. There's a door at the end of a corridor, but with each step it stretches and the door turns small in the distance. I reach for it, but I fall forward to the ground where my body is torn up and bleeds. Blood on my body, all around me. Red. Pulsing. The pain scorns me, but I am helpless and broken, with no means to move.

With a deep voice in the back of my mind, I focus on a new one. A golden angel stands before me, light illuminating him in a dark, never-ending room. I see nothing but him, he blinds me, and then he speaks.

His voice is distant, harsh, contrasting his angelic features.

I fear him, yet I want him.

"You killed me. You did this to me. And yet you stay with my murderer."

_Jasper?_

"You said you loved me. Why? If you loved me, then why did you kill me?"

_It wasn't me. I swear. I'm sorry. _

"But I'm not the first who's died by your hand, am I?"

_No! Don't say that. Jasper, I never meant for you to get hurt. Nor Tyler. It was never my intention. _

"But you're the reason we're dead. Don't deny it. If it hadn't been for you, we would be alive and well."

He's right.

I'm a monster.

Murderer.

His light evaporates and in his wake there is only a freezing breeze of death and devastation. I'm blinded, trying to move my hands, but I can't see them. Cold. I deserve it.

_Isabella. Isabella. Wake up. _

I run towards warmth and a soothing sing-sang voice, but my legs are immobile, nailed down to a broken-up floor. The room is small and drafty, only one source of light. A window. Outside: tall grey buildings in silhouette against a navy night sky with no stars and no moon, only blackness. Looking down; a sea of flames. Engulfed in them are faces, distorted and deranged into ogres and monsters, demons, trapped in fierce orange and raging red, they call for me to join them. _Come __to __us. __Come __to __us. __One __of __us. __One __of __us._

Jump.

Leap.

Falling again.

Just before the tips of heat ravage me…

…nothing.

* * *

><p>The song Isabella heard "<em>Den <em>_fyrste __song__" – "__The __first __song__"_, loosely translated:

_The first song I heard  
>was my mother's by the crib<br>Kind words flowed to my heart  
>and made my weeping quit. <em>

_I still see that road  
>when I let my eyes rest<br>an angel flowing, smiling wide  
>a smile angels know best<em>

It's one of my favorite lullabies, and can be found here at http:/www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=9x7nPVtacjY&feature=related  
>I know it sounds very sweet listening to her, but imagine a more sinister and grave voice... this is Edward, after all.<p> 


	8. Enlightenment

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **8. Enlightenment

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley (she's a doll! not to mention a life-saver)

**A/N: **We finally have snow(!) here, and advent's purple is all around me.  
>How did you spend the Christmas-preparations in '99? Hopefully not<br>holed up in an attic with vampires...

-.-

The pain inside my head is splitting, pulsing. Rushing through my body.

My sides.

My back.

I feel like I've been stabbed, and yet

Yet, it doesn't hurt that bad.

It's a hard feeling, yet soft; moss on a large rock, curbing the harshness. I don't dare open my eyes right now. Instead, I let myself feel the warmth through the cold, the softness through the solidness.

A chuckle.

I can't see it, but I imagine a warm smile and pearly whites framed by pale pink lips and dimples. Maybe long, curly blonde locks fallen from behind ears. Stubble on a round jaw. Light blue eyes…

"I know you're awake. Your pulse is quicker, and your breath is lighter. You breathe very hard when you sleep, did you know?"

Forced by a strange voice, wanting to see its owner, I open my eyes.

Such a beautiful man.

Strong face.

Deep green eyes.

_Wow. _

"Wh-who are you?" I ask tenderly, stretching my hand up to touch the stranger's face. His chin is soft, but not at the same time. So confusing. This feels like a dream. Surreal.

"Am I dreaming?"

He laughs again, and I find myself smiling. It's a lovely sound, like droplets on a tin roof while lying in your lover's arms. It fills your senses. Then a sudden burst of memory rushes through me; vivid pictures of a coffee shop rustling with chatty people, the smell of fresh brewing coffee and pastries. His laugh makes me feel like I'm walking in from the cold and being filled with the warm aroma of happiness.

Then that feeling replaced with an image of a broken down bar, passed-out patrons, and fake smiles — the ghost scent of alcohol and sweat overwhelm me. I feel the urge the gag.

"What's wrong?"

I shake my head. "Nothing." _Lies, __lies, __lies._

"Come on, Isabella, don't hide from me."

A trigger.

My name.

His voice.

Thick and deep like a man, but smooth and welcoming in its low tone.

He says my name, different from before, but it makes all of it come back to me.

_The roof. _

_Jasper._

_Murderer. _

_Vampire. _

_Attic. _

_Alone. _

Then there's that blackness, a hole in my memory, the hollowness in my soul that makes me recoil from his arms and jump to my feet. But I fall, a heap of limbs on the ground, because my legs are too weak to hold up my weight, and I feel exhausted. Haven't I just slept? I don't feel rested at all. I feel like I've run a marathon and lifted two-ton weights.

Again, I'm in his arms, but this time I don't try to get away from him. He stands, holding me with seemingly no effort at all, and walks. I keep my head down, looking at my hands folded in my lap. I don't even know where I am. Still in the house, the attic, or somewhere else?

"I was afraid I'd lost you," he says, and the worry lacing his voice is foreign to me. All I know of him is cold and callous, rough and raw. "You were out for so long." His hand urges my arm to position itself on the floor, and I shuffle halfway up and take in the room for the first time.

The attic. Still.

The room is dimmed, but not dark. A large red curtain of sorts, keeping the light out, covers the window. Oh yeah, vampires don't like sunlight. I shake my head, but there are other subtle differences; like the cleanliness of the place. Has it been cleaned? The air is fresh, not moldy like I'm used to. The room is nowhere near a five star like the Ritz Carlton, but far more livable now than before.

And I'm sitting on a mattress. It's old, there's a rip in the fabric, but it's clean. Compact. Comfortable. It's soft under me, and yet not as good as Edward's arms.

"For how long?"

"Weeks. It's December."

I gasp. That long? I've missed the fallen leaves of November, Thanksgiving, the end of a season and the beginning of another? I feel so small again. Lost. Alone. And then I look up at him, standing tall and constant. "What happened?"

"Depends on what you remember?"

"It's blurry. Pain. You. I don't know."

He sighs, still standing, and looks to the red curtains. "If only it had been day, then he would have sensed it: the sun. But it was night, and I was reckless, and I didn't mean for you to bleed."

"Laurent is new. French. They have no inhibitions at all, none regarding neither sex nor blood. I didn't want him here, but Alec likes to keep this place open to all who want to snack in private. I told him the newborn was a bad idea, but he's older than me, stronger than me, and didn't listen. You almost died because of it. I'm sorry."

"Excuse me?"

He gives me a look. It's stern, fierce, yet it doesn't frighten me. Fear is long gone now. "I said I was sorry. I never wanted you to get hurt. Not like that."

"Like what? By another one like… you?"

"No. You're mine."

"Yours." _What __does __that __mean?_ "How am I yours?"

He looks away, and there's a shade falling below his jaw, making it look as if he has stubbles. But he is clean, soft… does that go for all immortals?

"You are mine… because I found you. Because I keep you and hide you… and one day, your blood will be mine."

My head thuds. The pain. Make it stop.

The room spins.

"My blood," I deadpan, and my thoughts go to Jasper. "Like you took his? Like he was yours?" Tears gather in my eyes. "Like you stole him from his family?"

He can't steal me, because no one owns me. I am alone. No family will ever search for me. No one will care if I never come back. While Tyler was mourned for weeks, months, even years, and forever will be; there will be no recollection of me but the girl who killed her own brother.

"So you will kill me?"

I can't see him anymore. I blink, but the water in my eyes refuses to leave.

His answer is too far away, and I am deaf.

Again, in the darkness, I waste away.

-.-

"_Get out of my house!"_

"_You don't belong here!"_

-.-

When I wake up again, there's light outside. The curtains are pulled apart, letting it shine through, and I shuffle to my feet and look outside. The street from my first view has transformed. A white concrete wonderland looks back at me, shining and crystallized. Diamonds on the patches of dead grass between abandoned buildings, making me teary eyed. It's ugly and pretty at the same time, but in reality it's just a cover up. Makeup on a bruise. Long sleeves over scars.

The snow doesn't make the concrete beautiful. It doesn't make the reality disappear; the reality where beneath a beautiful exterior, lurks a dark core.

It's Edward.

It's Alec.

Beautiful creatures, ugly on the inside.

Then what am I?

A lone crow passes the window, and I am reminded of my wrongdoings. Jasper. Tyler. A crow, with black wings, carrying death.

"Close the curtains tight."

A muffled, but strong voice startles me, and I look towards the door. Who is it? It's not a voice I recognize right away, and I'm scared. What if it's the man…the French man? The vampire, come to finish his kill.

"Quickly, little human, unless your intentions are to leave me with minor wounds, for which I will kill you."

Little human. Alec?

I do as I'm told, and the second they're closed, the door opens. And there he is. Alec. A giant mass of muscles. Clothed this time, for once. It's odd, if you think about it, a vampire wearing jeans and a shirt. Deep, blood red. Fitting.

I snort.

It doesn't last long before his eyes go from bored to curious.

Then something hits me.

"Don't you… hibernate or something during the day?"

He cocks his head to the side. "What makes you say that?"

"Edward… he said something." _If __only __it __had __been __day, __then __he __would __have __sensed __it: __the __sun._"I figured you did something else at night."

"That's your conclusion? How do you think you receive food, how your… vomit… was cleaned up when you first arrived? Humans. You think so little, you never see the big picture. Open up your eyes for once. Why do you even think you're still here?" His voice is harsh and grave. As if I wasn't scared of him before. "For the amusement of tending to such a fragile little thing? Listening to my brother stress over you? Despite what you may think of us, of me, we don't all enjoy the sound of our own screaming in pain."

"What?"

"You're not paying attention at all, are you? Humans…" His tone is downright condescending, and I feel as if I should say something to defend myself. My race. However, reality stops me again. _Don't __piss __off __the __vampire._

"He's repeating my mistake…" He says it in a strange tone, looking toward the curtains with an odd look. For him, from what I know of him, his face seems to soften then sadden, and I finally see his eyes in another shade. Blue. Sorrow.

There's more to this man than what I've seen.

More than what I've experienced.

And then the monster returns, his features turning to stone again, and a sneer appears on his thin lips. His entire stance changes, and instead of a man, there is a vampire in the room.

It takes all but five seconds to see the change: vampire - man - vampire.

"And frankly, little human, I'm unsure as to whether or not I'll let him. Maybe I should just kill you now, and blame it on Laurent."

I don't doubt he will, and again I fear for my life. Pushing myself into the wall, I try to muster up a courageous face. "He'll know. He'll kill you."

Why the blind faith?

I don't have time to question myself, but suddenly I just _know_Edward won't let anything happen to me. Somewhere between keeping me from killing myself and holding a feral vampire down to protect me… something has happened. But hasn't he already told me he's not strong enough to go against Alec? At least I've seen it. A severed arm. Painful screams.

I lose my faux courage.

"Such faith in the vampire who wants to turn you. You're brave… _Isabella_."

There's too much to process…

The Italian accent to his voice as he says my name.

The meaning behind what he says.

But why am I suddenly so shocked? My joints tense up and lock, the fine hair on my arms stand up, and I can't seem to look away from Alec. Why? I've thought it before, but it's never registered.

Edward is a vampire - what other reason does he have to keep me, if not to change me?

To make me into him.

_Red flowing hair. _

_Red flowing blood. _

Alec smiles menacingly.

"My work here is done. You know, although you're a pain, you're quite the entertainment."

Then he's gone.

I'm alone.

Again.

-.-

Although it's in the back of my mind, I choose not to wonder why Alec came to see me. Why waste energy on that small fact when there are greater demons circling around me? Closing in. The moon is high in the cold sky, but the stars are invisible. Of course, this is still New York, although I haven't the slightest clue as to where. In the few years I've lived in this city, I've kept mostly to Brooklyn and Manhattan. On the Metro North, I always hold my purse a little tighter passing Harlem at night, and I always find a wagon with a lot of women on the subway.

I'm careful.

I'm scared.

I keep to myself and don't interact with people out of my comfort zone.

Jasper, the Copes, Sue at the bar, Stanley at the Ritz Carlton.

But they're all gone.

Dead, dead, moved… the rest too caught up in their own lives to care, or haven't noticed.

I've been gone for a month, and I wonder if there's even a missing person report out on me. Who'd file it? No one, because no one cares. My parents _won't_ miss me, and my brother is unable to miss me.

In heaven, is he watching and smiling, happy to see me meet my fate? To see karma catching up with me? No. Little Tyler. Always smiling and loving, he's unable to feel such base, petty things. All he ever did was love me, admire me, and I treated him like shit and let him die.

"Thinking hard?"

"Hardly thinking," I respond dryly. There's no response, and I don't want to turn around to face him.

He's going to kill me soon, in one way or another. I just want to enjoy the time I have left, even if the most joy I can get is to watch freedom from afar. Watch the moon, the sky— the emptiness of the world.

Reality though. Reality always catches up with you, and I speak out.

"Tell me how it was becoming a… vampire." I trip on the word.

His voice seems far away, but still I don't turn around. Watching him tell me, if he does, will be far too real. To be told in voice only, will be like a tale, and that is all I can take. The fact I'm accepting this so easily startles me. Where has the will to break out gone? The first night I almost jumped out the window, and now I askfor the truths behind the evil which keeps me captive?

Am I punishing myself? Is this what I deserve for my sins? After all, I am the cause of so many deaths. Maybe I should just accept it, use his experiences to make myself aware of what's to come.

Or.

Or, maybe I can delude him into thinking I want this. And in some way manage to escape?

I let the thoughts rest, as his voice interrupts my deliberations again.

"The truth?"

"Sure… why not? I have nothing better to do, and life here gets… boring. Tell me a story, Edward."

I prepare myself, yet hearing him speak out surprises me, and it gives me chills.

"It took me a long time to adjust to… the thirst. It's overpowering at first, an unstoppable craving that pushes you to run and drain anything you come across. I lost so many limbs in those first years, because I couldn't understand Alec and he didn't understand me. We were locked in constant battle. Always trying to get away from him. Always trying to quench my thirst. It took me such a long time before I realized my need for blood would never go away, and that Alec was the one who would teach me how to control my instincts.

My body turns around on its own accord, and he's standing just five feet from me, looking grim and torn, and when his eyes meet mine they look… lost_._

He pulls down the neck of his shirt a little, just to reveal a faded white line around his throat. It moves over, all around, and to the other side again. "I ran away again and happened across a small village in Sweden. I killed so many, many people, and I wasn't stopping. Alec found me, just as I was feeding on a little boy, and he wringed my neck until he severed it."

I can't control my gasp.

"The pain from feeling a limb being torn off is… indescribable, but suffice to say, I've never been in so much pain as when he tore off my head. He moved my body, and my head— separately, across the ocean to England, and hid me away in a basement. I can't remember the details and I suppose it's like being unconscious, only aware of your pain, when you can't connect to your head."

"How long were you like that?" I whisper, shocked, horrified with his story. But I asked for this. I wanted to hear. If this is what I'm in store for, I have to continue listening.

"Years."

"_Years?__"_ I choke. "He tortured you that long? Then why are you still with him?"

He shakes his head, looking at me through somber eyes. "Because he's all I have. In this eternal life, he's my only constant. Without him, immortality can be very lonely, you know. Without a partner, a mate, or your Sire, you'll go mad. Talking to yourself, doing as you please. Many vampires have been killed for going on a rampage. Threatening exposure when being on their own. I don't want to be alone."

_Oh Edward. _

Oh me.

He's not alone. He has his Sire. He has someone.

I don't have anyone.

All I have is a vampire in an attic who wants to turn me into a supernatural murderer.

"Anyways. Spain. After he put me back together, I was more _motivated_to do as he said. So we… studied, in a way."

"You went to school?" I ask, naïve to the reality of life before me.

"No, little human, we didn't attend schools or hire tutors. We stole books, read them, listened to the humans, and over time we were able to mimic them; understand the language."

"Then why did you leave?"

"Because we're vampires. Do you expect us to stay in just one place forever? No, we traveled Europe, tasted new blood from foreign bodies, found our preferences. Or, I did. Alec has always been fond of the thinner kind, man or woman; he takes them all… Rosalía was one of them."

I look up, shyly, wary, wanting to hear more. Sickly intrigued now. "Who was she?"

"We found her, in Basque, in a small village in the north regions of Spain. She was unmistakably beautiful in a natural Spanish way, tall and lean and woman. I almost killed her right there," he chuckles, shaking his head a little, and his small smile is captivating. I don't even care it's something that morbid which causes it, I just want to see that smile more.

"But Alec stopped me. He wanted her for himself, or at least I'd thought at the time. The same night he returned to me with red-smeared clothes and a thirsty mate who wanted me dead. I never fully understood her hatred toward me, but now…" He falters on his words, looking at me strangely with something mysterious in his eyes. "Now I know, she was jealous."

"Jealous? You mean you and Alec were…?" I trail off, blushing at the thought. He doesn't seem to notice, lost in his own story now. I can see the pain on his face, and it's strange.

"No, no. She wanted him for herself, all alone, not with me as a tag-along. Nothing more. Vampires are selfish, we don't like to share our mates with others, be it traveling companions or in, well, different settings."

_Red hair flowing. _

_Moans. _

_Hands on ass. _

Oh yes, different settings.

I shudder.

"Then what happened?"

"She was worse than me, but he didn't want to see it," he says gravely, his mind lost in the past. "Where I had been crazed, she was manic. She exposed herself to too many, killed without care or talent. She was sloppy— too sloppy, and others wanted us dead because of it. There's no police or protectors of our race, but we all know what it takes to keep us alive. A cover. Keeping the humans unknowing. A few months after her change we had been banished by the Spanish nightwalkers, never to return again."

"Where is she now?" I ask, and he glances at me questioningly. I wonder if I've gone too far. His hair is in disarray from his hand constantly raking through it. Somehow it perplexes me that he, a vampire, has a quirk. But he does. It's the hand through the hair, messing it up, and still remaining collected.

"She's dead," he says seriously, and I sense something even darker lurking beneath his statement. And I'm right, and so he tells me. "Alec wanted her to see his homeland, so we went to Italy, leaving blatant destruction in our wake. It was there, in one of the oldest lands of the immortal, he finally saw past his clouding affection and realized his mistake.

"Not everyone is made for being a vampire. Anyone can kill, but few are able to live; to stay alive. I don't know how long I'll live, how many generations I'll surpass, new eras I'll experience, or wars to run from, but if I continue along the path I've chosen, well… they say the path to Hell is paved with good intentions, but you get there even faster just acknowledging your dark side.

"Rosalía embraced hers, if nothing else. She didn't think. She just drank, fucked, and hated. Alec saw it, when she mixed two of them with a mortal man."

"She cheated?"

He nods. "For mates, that is unacceptable."

"But then shouldn't she have been unable to do so? Your logic is flawed, Edward." I stare him right in the eye, and I almost lose myself in pools of green. How can a man so beautiful be so ugly? The hard features, the strong jaw, the narrow nose.

"Like I said, for mates infidelity is unacceptable. It also is for a man who's been blinded by beauty and a thirst for companionship. He knows now they were never meant to be, but back then I killed her, sick of trying to cover our tracks and aggravating others of our kind. I killed her, tore her apart and burned her down to ashes. I lost a leg and an arm for that, but he's forgiven me… now."

I try to picture him - Alec - loving a woman. First it doesn't even seem plausible as our first encounter runs through my mind, but then earlier today makes an appearance— him standing still and dressed and handsome, smiling— even if he is menacing and calm spoken. Combined with the memory of him naked on the couch, glorious and fucking, is it impossible?

I suppose it's not.

But then…

Then Edward can surely be able of the same.

"What are you thinking?"

Such a mundane question, but laced with so much meaning.

I turn back to the window, closing my eyes for a split second with the image of him and I standing next to each other. And I know what I want.

"I want to go home."


	9. With white flags raised

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter:** 9. With white flags raised, greet the black witch of plague

**Rated:** M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley (if there are any mistakes left, they're all mine.)

**A/N: **Are you ready? It's Edward. Enjoy.

-.-

The memory of the flames rising from my father's body still roars loudly in my mind, even after all these centuries. Packed on a boat, I had sent him burning off onto the lake, standing next to my smiling mother. It was a funeral fit for a Viking, but held for a simple farmer.

When the sun keeps me captive from the world, the memory I most often think about is recalling the heat of the flames when I lit the pyre boat and pushed it from the bay, sending my father to the other side, because Valhalla was only for warriors, not for simple farmers.

As centuries had passed, we had lost the right to the throne when Christianity pushed through the country, and we became soil tillers, with royal washed out blood.

I still grit my teeth knowing I could have been wealthy and royal, but there is nothing I can or could do. Well, except for torturing that frog-sucker Laurent once in a while. Always fun. Always leaving me with a sense of righteousness— a short feeling of _justice, _before returning to the attic and a girl who up until now, has been the fairytale image of Sleeping Beauty. But I am no prince. I am the dark knight.

Yet the flames, still so clear even now after seven hundred years, are something I'll never let myself forget, and the scar around my throat will forever be there to remind me if I ever do.

I look down at Isabella, with her head tucked under my arm as she rests with her side pressed against mine, and I can't help but marvel as to why I had never done this in my human years. I suppose those times were different. Very different. Back then there had been no need for explanations or frivolous tales of the past, so I wait a minute to collect my thoughts and arrange them in the right order.

Spain.

England.

Rosalía.

No. Wrong order.

The night is still young, and the air is cold around us. She's been asleep in the corner for no more than an hour. Huddled in on herself, she is wearing my too long, too broad shirt with her legs stretched in front of her.

_"I want to go home."_

That won't happen. Now that I have her, I just can't let her go. Though her scent is amazing by far, her blood is not all I want to taste. Seeing how she hides herself behind her folded arms, her beauty is a tainted innocence. She doesn't love herself. She doesn't think she's beautiful and that makes her attractive. My wife was like that at first, a bud waiting to flourish. Then again, that went straight to hell. I now believe Bella is my mate. I know it. She will know it. And Alec hates it— or wants it.

I can't read him anymore. After learning to know his mind, his intentions have always been obvious. Go there, kill them, stay here, feast there. When we came to America fifty years ago it was obvious even then what he wanted. In the new world— or, new to us— he wanted to start up a house, like so many other covens and loners did. A few were in New York, but most kept to the castaway places of the Midwest

Keeping a house is not for everyone. One has to be old enough to be over the "newborn" years where everything with a pulse is a snack. You have to be willing and understandable of the way we live - the curse we've been bestowed, and willing to take strange vampires in for shelter. You have to be the authoritarian and strong enough to handle the task. But it's Alec after all—_authority_ is his middle name.

But now I don't know what he's after. He pesters me to kill her, just kill her, but keeps the others from doing so. It's become Alec's decree. The occupants all know what will happen if they touch her; they hear Laurent's screams. So what? These thoughts plague my mind— questioning Alec is not something I've done in a long time.

When she begins to stir, I remove myself from her warm body. She's still so reluctant to accept me, to try and love a monster. The foolish girl does not realize her human days are numbered. Soon, she will truly be mine. She already is, but her heart is not there yet. A mate must be trustworthy and I can't trust a girl who wants to leave.

She asked me to tell her the truth of becoming a vampire. I steered the truth towards the aftermath, towards Alec, and kept the conversation from my past. She needs to trust me. If she does, she'll change her mind about wanting to leave.

She stirs, her pulse quickens, and I remove myself from her to stand by the window. Staring at the moon, my night time sun, I start at the beginning.

"I killed my father when I was nineteen…"

-.-

_The grass is still green, but the sun shows no mercy on my livelihood, or me, and scorches the crops brown. We had a grass fire last week that almost burned down the barn; its z-marked doors still marked with black streaks from the flames. The tare creates a sickening smell that still lingers when the wind comes from the north, but we've moved the fences further west up the hillside. The fences now cast long shadows when the sun settles, making my farm a place of darkness. _

_The boys wear their hand-me-down pants baggy around their legs, using the bell hoops from slaughtered cows to tie them around their waists. Barebacked, they leave their fronts exposed to the sun, flushing as the dawns come and go. They look like me, far too much, with brown hair that now shines with hints of shimmering red; a trait I, for the love of God, hope is inherited from their mother. _

Sons of a whore.

_For the first time in my life, the summer is showing sun on the clear blue sky, burning us all until we're red and whimpering while we work hard. We're never 'hardly working' because the tax man will take my bread and butter if we fall behind. But while my sons complain as we hang up the hay, I only grit my teeth. _

_They're ungrateful little bastards. _

_For God's sake they're too much like their mother; it disgusts me. _

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

_But then again I shouldn't have been surprised when I took the same turn as my father and married an Irish whore; the rights to inherit my father's farm came with the stipulation to be wed and her to bear me sons to inherit after me. _

_Katie was the orphaned maid on my best friend's farm, and was sold to me for only two horses. It was a good deal, I'd thought at the time, but now I hold nothing but regret and resentment towards the lazy whore who couldn't cook, or milk cows; who refuses to learn our native tongue but rattles away in Gaelic, only understanding the meaning of fists and snarls. _

_The only thing she's good for is spreading her legs wide, so at least I get something out of this horrid arrangement. _

_Her attitude, though, is just as feral as her bedroom-screams, and I see a look on her face resembling envy and hate. Her mouth opens with cut up words, sounding like Satan's whip, as she turns to shriek in her foreign tongue at young Matilda, the girl whom has provided my horses with apples throughout the summer. I hiss at Katie, making her shut up and leave, then turn to smile at the little girl. _

_She comes down the hillside, her white dress shifting with the cooling breeze; her braids swinging around her head as she skips. So happy. So innocent. So young. _

_Had I been been given daughters, a small child like her who could have been taught to cook, I wonder if I would be less ruthless, if I'd love her more than I love my sons. I know for a fact she's an amazing shepherd, with her skilled hands handling the long oak stick and secret cattle calls, but I don't have enough sheep to send to the mountain for the fall, but today I slip the child an extra cent and a wide smile, because I won't get to see her innocent little face for a long time. _

_Had she been my daughter, I wouldn't have sent her to the mountains alone, where the tops still hold hints of glaciers and snow. _

_My sons on the other hand…_

_The sun keeps blaring, drenching my clothes with sweat before the high noon, and I call the boys to fetch water from the creek and trot over to the main house, calling out to my whore of a wife to prepare a meal. _

_She refuses to answer, and I find her in our wedding bed in nothing but naked skin. _

_She's a fucking trollop. _

_So she's treated like one. _

_Knowing the boys will be gone for a little while I sink myself between her spread knees and make her earn the right to kiss me. She's my wife, and she will do as she's told, and I bite her neck to remind her of her place. _

_Still, she comes. It always amazes me how she reacts towards pain and spurs me on with her sounds. But what else can I do to punish her? Hurting is all I know having learned of love through white clenched fists from my father when I was a boy myself. My own boys have yet to see this brutal faith besides a good backhand and a slap across the rear on a bad day. In a few years if they don't shape up, I have no doubt they'll suffer the same vicious punishments I have. _

_I can't afford to hire workers, not when the tax man demands higher payments at every visit, so all I have is myself, a useless wife, and two bastards sons who aren't worth one of the horses' legs I'd bargained for their mother. _

_She groans, I huff, and climb off of her, relaxed in a single moment of bliss. _

"_Take the boys to the market; the Samson's are coming tomorrow and I won't have you make a fool out of me again. Make a good meal, woman,"I tell her, and am met with a blank expression on a freckly face with crooked teeth peeking through agape lips. _

"_Market!" I shout, the only thing she can understand, and she scurries off to get her sons, rushing on a dress that hasn't seen a good stone washing in the creek for over a week. She reeks of sex and shit. She reeks of Irish genes. _

_She teaches them that wretched language, knowing it annoys me, but as long as they hold their tongues while I'm around, I'll let it slide. _

_I am not the same man as my father, may the gods rest his soul, but I learned many a-things from him, including the knowledge that to threaten others is the most effective way to get your way. _

_While they leave, my sons excited and bouncing as they hold their mother's hand, singing songs in a language I hate, I go the paddock where my only pride and joy is munching on browning grass. I whistle him over, and he eats an apple out of my palm, licking it afterwards much like a dog would do, and I stroke his mane. He's far too hot to be out here, so I lead him to the stinking barn, the only place of shade at this point. _

_Pan._ _Forrest prince. _

_He's royal, blue blooded, just like me. Or half of me. _

_My poor sons. No wonder they're such fools, surviving on more Irish than the royal Norwegian blood running through their veins. My mother had given me only one bit of advice I ever held on to._ "_Be gentle with your children, let them be young, don't make them grow up like you did." But I had never loved the woman whose red hair had shined as a flag of warning: danger! _

_Although I had been the one to pass the butcher knife into my father's stomach, she had been the one to convince me to do it, crying with a broken nose and blood running. She tricked me because she wanted to end the life of the man who had worked her, and me, to the bone. In a moment of weakness, I played the devil's advocate, I slew my own father in a moment of rage. I was tired of the blisters, too little food, and being ordered around like a dog. When I saw my mother's beaten face, it only fueled the flames within me. _

_It's been years since I killed my father, and I was only nineteen when I took over the Samsonsen farm as sole heir._

_The unbearably hot summer passes and my bitch of a wife nags about the heat, wasting her days in the waterfall down the by creek, bathing in the nude, attracting the attention of wayward pilgrims on the way to Nidarosdomen*. All the while, I work my sons to the point where even I am willing to show mercy. _

_Then the cough comes. _

_I hear whispers of Bjørgvin* and a witch in black who knocks on doors and demands both young and old. She is without soul. She is without standards. She only harvests death. _

_Autumn's orange leafs begin to wither, and we survive for now, but then my youngest is bed ridden. _

_Blisters. _

_Blackened flesh. _

_They have raised white flags in warning when docking in Bjørgvin, but the workers on the harbor did not heed the warnings, and now we are all doomed. _

_The oldest boy passes not soon after, and I bury their bodies close together, with sticks as crosses, and I stand with my wife mourning on the last day of the harvest. _

_She coughs. _

_I banish her to the barn to suffer away from me, and after five nights the witch is at my door, requesting the soul of an Irish whore. _

_I do not mourn. I will survive this. _

_The winter passes and I go by unharmed, and at the first sight of spring I take Pan, my only remaining horse, and travel to town. _

_There are no immediate signs of life when the sun settles behind me and casts shadows on the closed and unlit houses and market. But I find them, the remaining spouses and occasional child in the only old bar with its open doors and dead-drunk poor bastards hang off the chairs with filthy mugs in their hands. _

_Tonight, I drink myself to a stupor. Then the next night, and the night after that. _

_The first week as a widower is hazy in my mind, as I stagger out the door at closing time, and raise my head to the night sky. I feel a brewing cough in my lungs, working its way up my throat. I try to hold it in, but it's too painful. _

_When I double over and let it out, silence falls in my wake. _

-.-

The stillness in the room is something I've become quite familiar with in the time this little human girl has occupied the abandoned attic room, and I find it soothing to stand and listen to her heart thumping. Her breath falls in an even beat with her pulse, synchronized, and the sound of her chest rising and falling relaxes me.

When Alec tore my arm off, the sound of her heart had helped me through the pain, although the stench of her stomach's contents had sickened me, the bile did not overpower the singing scent of her hot blood. Her sanguine fluid had led me to a boy who oozed of her delicious aroma, but I had wringed his neck when his blood did nothing too sooth my thirst. Males are not my preference. I prefer the young blood of sweet innocent girls; untarnished and untouched.

Virgins in monasteries.

Runaway teens.

Even gypsies once in a while, who still walks unmarked.

Once I tracked her down, I had been conflicted.

_Drain her. _

_Kill her. _

_Bring that boy back to life and kill him again!_

_Her smell on him. _

_Together. _

_Mine!_

I had wanted to suck her dry, fuck her vigorously, or both. Definitely both. Still do, but something about her keeps me from taking her.

I want her.

But I want her to give herself to me. My gift. My human.

"You were married?" she whispers, though I hear her perfectly fine. Isabella reminds me of the girl with the apples, with her big innocent eyes. I was first struck by her delectable scent then her beauty beneath the midnight moon.

"I was. I didn't love her."

"But she was your wife!" she gasps, "And your sons! How can you be so cruel, ho-how can you be so cold when they were your own flesh and blood?"

I try to avoid the clenching feeling inside me. She truly believes I have no heart, and while it cannot beat, I have seen the truth that it can.

_Sire. _

_Spain. _

_Rosalía_.

"The marriage was one of convenience," I persist, gazing up at my sun, white and illuminating, casting shadows on the crooks and corners of the world.

"Because of your father's death?"

"Don't sugarcoat it, _Isabella,_" I snarl. "Actions speak louder than words, little girl, and it was murder, through and through. Don't try and make it out to sound like his heart just gave out when it was my knife which made him bleed out!"

She recoils then is silent and I can practically hear her mind churning. She's so ignorant to the dangers and truths of my world. Innocent in only a way a human can be.

"And your mother? You didn't mention her after…" Bella's eyes narrow in thought, her brows coming together in confusion. "I don't understand that part."

"She was a whore. Irish. She came to me bloodied and bruised, saying my dad had done her wrong. I saw red and gutted him. After we sent him off to the afterlife, I banished her. If she lived or died, I don't know, but it was a long time ago – long before public records were kept of people—she might not even have survived that winter."

Silence follows, and the bridge of her nose wrinkles as she ponders.

"You said you caught the plague yourself. What happened?"

I grin, shaking my head with amusement.

"Then, little girl, I died."

-.-

_I've known Frank Johnsen almost my entire life, having gone into town with my mother every week as a child and sometimes with my dad. As a teenager, my dad and I would pay a visit to Åkra's only bar in the dusk, and then throughout my adult life. _

_Until now. _

_Frank's sons are goons, all muscles and no brains, but obedient. They don't talk right, their movements are rash, but when Frank calls, they do their job. They guard the bar from robbers and thieves, and throw out aggressive drunks at midnight. _

_And now it's me. I now have become the rabble-rouser they proceed to kick out. They keep their death grips around my arms, to the point that I know there will be bruises if they don't kill me. There was an accident last year when the brothers went too far and left a man to die by the fjord. I see where they're taking me, and I worry a little, but it's laced and dulled underneath with moonshine and home brew. _

_Who do I have left to live for?_

_What work do I have left?_

_Besides Pan, I have no one, nothing, except for a plague that has taken my body hostage. I feel it inside me, I feel death closing in. So what if I die by the hands of two knuckleheads? Better die by their hands, than by the witch who tricks and steals. _

_The sun has settled behind small rock island in the ocean, but the sky still holds hints of orange in the horizon. With my head smashed down in the earth, I envision it behind closed eyes. Their punches are ruthless; a mountain goat attacking a rock. Their kicks like wild horses on hunters. I moan and scream and grunt. One kick. Two punches. Ribs breaking, jaw crushed, fingers pointing in wrong directions. _

_And the blood. _

_The salty smell fills my senses, making me gag. _

_I try to plead_. Stop, please, no_. But they are all muscles and no brains. They don't hear my pleas. They don't comprehend the consequences of their dangerous actions. _

_The oldest brother spits on my body, patting the younger but bigger brother on the back for a job well done. I see it barely through swollen eyes, breathing shallow through busted up lips. I feel the blood trickle down my chin, my cheeks, my temple. So much blood. So much pain. _

_The deep purple light of the sunset surrounds me, ready to take. I walk towards the settling sun, reaching out, almost touching but not quite there yet. Closer. Closer. _

_Then a voice. _

_"Hai lo stesso odore del vino italiano, profondo e ricco."_

_I moan, babbling incoherently. I feel life ebb away from my body. _

_"Un vino che dovrebbe essere assaporato, centellinato piano piano. Ma tu non ne hai il tempo, vero, contadino?" _

"_Please," I manage to choke. He talks in a different tongue, but it's a fluent and beautiful sound, unlike that horrid gaelic. Is he the angel of death? "Take me. End my pain." _

_"Ma tu hai forza di volontà. Ti ho visto. Hai incassato i colpi. vuoi forse morire?"_

_My head spins. I don't understand. "End the pain," I plead again, staring up at a blur of mass and darkness. _

_"Sembri forte. Unisciti a me, contadino, unisciti a me nella vita eterna dopo la vita."_

_He leans in just as my vision ends and joins the dead. A scorching pain. Fire pulsing in my veins. Then, only blackness. _

-.-

"Later on, he told me his reasoning for changing me. He'd been in the area for a few weeks, seen death take over the land, trying to find untarnished blood. While the plague wouldn't have killed him, it would have made more damage than good. It weakened him to change me, in addition to the strength it takes to quit. But I suppose the bitter taste of me helped."

She sits so still on the mattress, her brown eyes glistening. I don't understand her sadness. Had it not been for Alec, I would never have met her.

She doesn't speak. She only looks at me, questioning, wounded, hurting. For me. I don't need her sympathy. Her pity. I hate her expression, like the gods in some way have wronged me, like my life is a curse. It's not. It's heaven on earth, the greatest satisfaction. Drinking, feeding; almost better than sex.

The thoughts lead me on dark paths, envisioning my little human girl. I've seen her in her natural beauty, needing to get her out of blood-drenched clothes; the smell too tempting – and I have never wanted a woman's body so much before. Plumpness curving around hips, ass and chest, tight and soft. How I didn't take her then is beyond me. A mystery.

I shake my head and continue. "He told me, when I could understand his speech, he had seen me as a fitting companion. In his years as a soldier, he had never seen someone so strong— so willing to end his or her life. He wanted to see how I'd be, how I'd live, if I would be able to fight back. He changed me, and I have never looked back from that day."

Looking back at her, her now streaming tears confuse me. I step closer, my finger stretched out to brush them away, but she recoils. Why? What is wrong?

"Is… is, that wh-what you w-a-ant from me-he?" she chokes and sobs, blabbering on her hands and knees trying to get away from me. She's too weak to stand after waking, her wounds still itching, and crawls, from one corner to another, folding into herself.

"What do you mean, Isabella?"

Her eyes, her face, the fear and the pain etched in them. It haunts me. What has scared her so?

"I don't… I don't want that. I don't want _this. _Let me go!" she yells, and it's like a knife twisting in my dead heart. "Set me free! I don't want this! I don't want to be like _you!"_

And that's the truth.

That's the reality of this.

Where I have found my mate, she only sees a monster. I've portrayed nothing more and nothing less, because that is who I am, _what _I am. I can't put a cover over my past and present, and pretend to be a better man that I am. I've done what I've done to survive— followed the times in which I've lived, and with each life I have taken, I have lived their years of life and more so.

But I _am_ more. I want to be _more. _

For my little human.

So fragile and soft, only now learning about the truths of my cruel and dark world. For her, I want to hunt down her demons and slay them, banish them from the world, never to return again. I want them gone, so I can see the true innocence of her eyes staring back at me. But now all I see is fear, warranted and justified, afraid of the man with steel teeth and a thirst for pulsing red blood.

What she wants is not something I can give her.

"Please, let me go home."

"_Never."_

* * *

><p>*Nidarosdomen: famous Norwegian church mapped on a pilgrim quest.<p>

*Bjørgvin: now known as the city Bergen, is where it's said the plague came to Norway first in 1349, described in the book, _"Det kom eit skip til Bjørgvin i 1349 – There came a ship to Bjørvin in 1349"_.

*For a visual of the witch - http:/no (dot) wikipedia (dot) org/wiki/Fil:Theodor_Kittelsen_-_Pesta_i_trappen,_1896_%28Pesta_on_the_Stairs%

Thank you LeMomo for translating the Italian for me!


	10. Mea Maxima Culpa

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter:** 10. Mea Maxima Culpa: _my __most __grievous __fault_

**Rated:** M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N: **This won't be hard to follow. Italics are flashbacks, for those who need the  
>clarification. Other than that, enjoy!<p>

-.-

_Never. _

Never is a loaded word. Used too often, its meaning stripped away and switched out with different definitions. Never is two hours, a week, a month. Never is not everlasting anymore, but chopped up into hissy fits which pass. "Never" is forgotten.

From Edward's mouth, passing his lethal teeth and delectable lips, the word is not one I take lightly. Never means eternity. Never is lifetimes passing in the blink of an eye. Immortality. Vampire. Never is haunting and staring me right in the face.

Never is an eternity of him, with him. Of remembering, of living with myself knowing I am a murderer in every way there is. Never becomes forever, and that is the scariest thing I've ever come across.

And I have tried killing myself.

I have killed.

I have held death in my hands and painted myself in blood.

Yet living forever frightens me more.

"Please… leave me alone. Just please."

The tears flow at their own accord. My vision blurs and blurs, but he stays put. A statue made of flesh and blood and venom. Has he no sympathy? Have all the human emotions been drained from him; replaced only with a thirst for blood? How can someone be so cold? How can he just deny me my freedom?

I've been here for so long, confined to a small room with a teasing view so close to me.

I haven't gone longer than the bathroom downstairs, not since that first day. For more than a month, all I've known are these four walls. This window. The red curtains. The vampires. The cruelty.

Before, I thought I lived on the shadow side of life; tormented in my own guilt and grief. Now though… I realize it was nothing compared to this. Fear has returned to my heart, and black has become onyx. Red has become blood. White has become a vast and almost unrecognizable hope.

Flesh is no longer only flesh.

Blood is no longer only blood.

Menial things I never gave a second thought are now everything.

Flesh is black and filled with venom. Blood is sustenance. Together, they are predator and victim. Lion and lamb.

"I'm not a cruel man, Isabella. Well, I am. But not to you. Haven't I been nothing but kind to you? Saved you, fed you, held you as you were wounded? Don't take that for granted - I am the sole reason you're still alive."

Somehow I muster the courage to speak, firmly, without hesitation in my voice. "Perhaps you've forgotten, but death is exactly what I've wanted from the start!"

"_'I've'_. You still do? Then say the word, Isabella, and I'll make it so!"

Fuck.

Shit.

He called my bluff!

He sees it in my eyes, and smiles. Teeth showing.

"You don't want to die. You gave up on that a long time ago. I suppose it was around the same time you started falling for me."

Lies, lies, lies.

I'm not falling for him.

It's impossible. And sick. And wrong. And… _never_happening.

A part of me… the part that is ruled by emotion, rather than logic, can't help but look at him and want him. His physique, shaped like Michelangelo's David, every detail made of stone, chiseled and smooth. Used to lure in victims. The most inviting part of him: his eyes. Green pools, like a meadow. Like the first leaves of spring.

They are also the most frightening parts of him.

For they turn red.

Letting logic take over.

Logic puts away the lust of eyes, and focuses on the fear. On the danger. Seeing with real eyes that his eyes are lethal, as is his body, mind, and words.

I haven't fallen for him.

My body has fallen for him.

When I sleep, I dream of him as a man, starring in memories of Jasper, but as himself. There, I lean against the railing of the fire escape, and Edward stalks closer, but with lust and love in his eyes, not a thirst for blood. He holds me in his arms and envelopes me in devotion.

But I always wake, do I not?

I always come back to reality once the sun shines through the curtains, painting the room in a red and ominous light.

And isn't that how it is? Darkness and human urges walk hand in hand, only to be broken by light and logic.

"I'll never love you."

The smile fades away, and a threatening line occupies his lips.

"But you will… one day. One day you will realize you're my mate; made for me. Until then…"

He leaves the sentence hanging in the air, and I have an urge to ask "then what?", but refrain. He looks at me a final time, before backing up again, leaving the room silent as always. When the door is shut, there are no other sounds but my breathing. Labored.

-.-

_The blood is everywhere. _

_Rusting smell. Nauseating. It's on my hands and my face. _

_In his hair. His body. His clothes. _

_Oh, Tyler. Oh, Tyler. _

_I'm so sorry. _

-.-

The following days pass by slowly. It's cruel. Taunting. There is nothing worse than being left alone with your own thoughts for so long. Leaving you to dwell on them.

When I came to New York, I had a lot of time on my hands. I only had the clothes in my suit case, along with a few pictures and other objects, and living off the few hundred bucks I'd saved up for college. That dream was gone. The dream of cooking school, of becoming a chef; it was crumbled up into pieces of lost hope. I spent my money well; surviving on small amounts of food. A sandwich would last me a day sometimes, much like it does now.

I also lived in homes. The kind you don't want to think about. Homes for the social outcasts. _Homeless__people._I was _homeless_ at the tender age of eighteen, living scared at night and repenting during the day. I went to churches. I asked God for forgiveness. But it never came. Whenever I called back to my parents, they never spoke to me.

I had travelled across the country; on busses and trains, and I'd arrived in a melting pot where the likes of me were many but hated.

And I had never been more alone.

Loneliness gives you the opportunity to clear out where in life you went wrong.

When I started to eat?

When I started to work out?

When boys looked at me as something else than the fat blob blocking their view?

The catalysts.

-.-

_"Come on, Izzy-bizzy. Peter Jenks will be there!"_

_I stare at myself in the mirror, running my hand down my side. The other keeps the phone to my ear. It's smooth. I look good. But I'm still…I can't compare to Chelsea. She's naturally thin, even though she eats like a trucker. _

_Sometimes I really hate genetics. _

_"I don't know, Chels'…"_

_"Please? Be my wing-woman! Sam is going to be there. Come on, come on, come ooooon! You have that blue swimsuit you bought last week. Your girls look great in them. Peter will be all over you!"_

_My face turns into a ripe tomato. _

_A minute pass, I clear my throat, and say, "You sure?"_

_"Definitely."_

-.-

Food still appears. But this time around Edward doesn't bring it in. He leaves it outside and alerts me with a knock on the door. Although he's torturing me, he still wants me to live. Not for long… Jesus. Not for long, indeed. Just until I tell him I love him and let him change me.

Putting it like that, I realize now how truly crazed and sick he is. One can say it's in his nature to be evil. To be cruel. But he was once a man.

_But as a man, was he not a bastard?_

He treated his wife and his sons like shit, like rubble beneath his feet. Has he ever been lovable? In the seven hundred years he's existed, he has never found anyone before, has he? He has lived alone for so long… even Alec found someone along the way, even if he lost her on the way.

Is this destiny, though?

Have I always been meant for him? Always been meant to commit the worst crime against nature; murder, and end up with a man suitable to fit my sins?

But he wasn't always cruel.

The little girl he wanted to be his daughter…he treated her well. He could've loved her.

Oh, but where is the hope when dealing with the undead? How can one even consider the possibility that love even exists in a world when blood give as much, if not more, pleasure as sex? It's not something I like to think about, and under normal circumstances I'd let this go and bury it in the backburner. But this is no normal circumstance.

I'm being held captive by _vampires_ in an abandoned building.

One wants me gone.

The other wants me to be his bride.

I actually find myself longing back to the days when my worries revolved around prioritizing my social life.

-.-

_I rush down the stairs, wearing my blue swimsuit beneath my jean-shorts and t-shirt. I've been holed up in my room writing a personal statement for my last-minute college application, and not realized that it was one of the rare, hot, sunny days. Chelsea is waiting for me to pick her up, all in the mission to seduce and conquer Sam Uley; the older, handsome, college freshman. Last year's point guard. This year's eye-candy. _

_"Going somewhere, sweetie?"_

_My mom stops me at the door, and I let out a breath or irritation. She's on me so much lately, and it's hard enough trying to exercise, eat right, be social, keep up with school, and do everything she tells me to on the top of that. _

_"The __beach." __I __notice __she's __more __dressed __up __than __usual. __Even __wearing __make-up. __"Are _you_?"_

_She cracks out a smile. "Actually I am. Your father and I are going over to the Blacks for a late lunch, and then dinner later on. I'm sure I told you, hon. So I need you to watch your brother."_

_"But I'm going to the beach! Come on, mom, I haven't had a free weekend in ages."_

_Her face turns stern, and I'm not eighteen, I'm eight; being caught stealing from the cookie-jar. _

_"Either take your brother, or stay home. You decide."_

-.-

Today, the snow is falling hard outside, and I can't help but imagine myself as a child. Happy days, when it was just me, my mom, and my dad. We had a tradition to make snowmen of ourselves, and bake gingerbread cookies on days like this. Relishing in Christmas. Decorating the house inside and out with lights.

When my brother was born, I was happy at first. I'd always wanted a younger sibling, but as life continued and he became the object of my parents' affection and time, I started to resent him. Just a little. I was too used to being an only-child and being in the center of attention.

The loneliness is what brought me to eating.

To the pounds causing havoc in my body.

My dad had always wanted a son; in hindsight I understood that. The pictures I have of myself as a small child all portray me in sporting wear. On my dad's lap while watching a Mariners match. At a baseball game. Me in a soccer uniform. Then Tyler came along and my dad got what he'd always wanted.

A _real_son.

I start choking up, and tears gather in my eyes.

I stare at the door for hours.

And hours.

And hours.

Until day turns to night.

Winter has turned the days shorter. I wonder, do vampires love the winter? They must. It's not like they can go tanning.

Out of loneliness, out of boredom, I test the waters. "Hello?" I say out loud, questioning, wondering, hoping.

"Edward…someone. Is there anyone there?"

The floorboard outside the door creaks.

But what? Who?

I'm instantly frightened, and hold my breath, pushing myself into the wall where I sit on the mattress. "Hello? Who's there?" There's no answer. "Answer me!" I say more forcefully, and then I gasp as quick footsteps fade down the stairs.

Footsteps.

Sounds.

Someone's _there._

I rush to the door, banging, screaming, "Help me! Help me! Please, whoever you are, help me!", but no one answers. The sound of feet die, and I fall to my knees crying. "Please…please."

-.-

_The park is filled with people, and I spot Ben Cheney immediately. I rush over to the underclassman, my brother in tow. _

_"Hey there, Ben!"_

_He stutters. "Isa-Isabella. Hey. Uhm. Hi. How…What are you doing here?"_

_I smile and flutter my eyes, a trick I learned from Chelsea's older sister, and brush my hand against his arms. He blushes and shifts…covering his crotch. His little sister is playing on the swings behind him. _

_"I'm here with my brother. Actually, can I ask you for a favor? Can you just look after him for like, an hour? I just remembered I have to pick something up at the post-office and stuff… It'll be an hour, tops. Please, pretty please?"_

_Five seconds later I have confirmation and turn to my brother. _

_My annoying, time-consuming, nine year old brother. _

_"Listen, Tyler. I'll be right back, okay? In the meantime, you can play with Ben's sister."_

_"But __she's __a _girl_, __Bella. __I __don't __want __to __play __with __her. __I __want __to __be __with __you!"_

_"I'm a girl too, ya know."_

_"No…you're my sister..."_

_For a nine year old, he's pretty thick. _

_"It's an hour, Tyler. You can handle that."_

_He yells 'I love you' after me, and I wave at him from the car. _

-.-

I spot someone on the street.

I go ballistic.

It's the middle of the day - though I don't know which day, or how many days have passed - and the sun is shining. I don't think it's even that cold outside, until I spot a person below me. Just across the street. From what I can tell, they're wearing a long black coat and a beanie. Long, blonde hair sticks out and flows down the back.

A woman.

I bang as loud as I can on the window, yelling, screaming.

"Hello! I'm up here. Up here. Look up here. Save me. Call 911!"

And she turns.

I have hope.

I've found salvation. This woman will see me trapped, and she will call someone to help me. Finally, I will be free.

But.

Oh no. What if she comes in! She'll be killed!

These fears are running through my mind, and as she stops and turns, I pray to God that she won't try to come in. Be sensible, woman, go to the authorities!

She turns…she looks straight at me. I can tell. She's looking right up, right at this building, straight at me…

And then she mouths something, words I can't tell from this distance.

Then she's gone.

Running slowly down the slippery street with her head bowed.

What the hell?

What. The. _FUCK?_

She saw me! I know she saw me! But then why…

And then I backtrack what I've seen, and realize I saw her first as she emerged from my side of the street. From my building. She's been…here. In this house of dead. Brothel of sins. This shelter for those who cannot walk during the day. She's been here. And then it dawns on me, that since no vampire has made any sounds walking up those squeaky steps, the possibility that it was the blonde woman is big.

A fellow human.

Betraying me.

Maybe I'm left to the dead.

-.-

_Peter Jenks. The object of my affection. A basketball player. Not the best. Not the worst. But handsome either way. _

_Arriving at the beach, I strip for my t-shirt, but leave my shorts on. I'm still self conscious. I haven't reached my goal yet, and I instantly turn around to go back home. But Chelsea has spotted me already, and catches up to me before I can turn the ignition. _

_"Going somewhere?"_

_"Home."_

_"But… Peter is asking for you!"_

_And I'm outside in a flash. Down on the beach. Flirting. Then kissing. Holding hands. _

_Time flies._

-.-

When I arrived back at the park, it was already dark. At the beach, Peter Jenks had become my first boyfriend and last boyfriend, and had made a promise to take me to prom. I drove in ecstasy, with a gigantic smile on my face. I radiated. Life was good.

And then it never was again.

Later on, I'd discover Tyler had told poor Ben that he'd manage to walk home on his own, that our house was two blocks from the park, when he left with his sister, and being the kid he was, Ben believed him. No one ever blamed, him, nor should they have, but all fingers pointed to me at some point. The sister who neglected her own brother. My friends, Chelsea even, came out to say how much I nagged about my brother. How many times I said he was a pain. A bore. _Unnecessary._I hated them for that, mostly because I thought they realized I didn't mean it full-heartedly.

All baby brothers are pains.

All older sisters complain about them.

I just never thought it would come back to bite me in the ass. One could say it was karma, or faith, but I've always thought it was just life and me being incompatible. I ruin everything, whether it is for me and my body, or for the people I love. My track record? Well, it's obvious. I ruined myself, before I got selfish and ruined my family. Killed my brother. Then I lived in fear and grief for years, until I started to love again, and ended up killing the man I loved in the process.

Peter never took me to prom. I didn't even go. Instead, I stayed home locked up in my room, crying as I heard my parents yell at each other. My dad was tired from over-working, and my mom was always drunk.

Her little boy had been murdered.

Her alcoholism was understandable. So was her anger, and the finger she pointed at me.

_Get out. _

_It should have been you, not him. _

When my dad was working, my mom would find me and cuss me out. I was no longer her daughter. I wasn't family. And my father, afraid to lose the love of his life after losing the son he always wished I had been, took her side. He never said a thing, but he never stopped my mother's mouth, either. He stood idly by and closed his eyes and ears.

The final month of high school, I was alienated by my friends, my classmates, and even the teachers. Although no court of law could ever find me guilty in the eyes of justice, it didn't keep the eyes of the public to make their own verdicts.

Guilty.

Murderer.

My parents didn't come for graduation, and no one clapped as the principal called out my name and handed me my diploma. I was honor roll. I had the chance to go great things. And instead, I packed up a bag and hit town before summer break really begun.

I abandoned my brother and dove into my own selfishness. In the aftermath of grief, I swam in a sea of guilt and hate. Hate towards myself. Hatred towards the wolf that tore into my brother's little body. Hate towards the ones I loved who turned their backs on me, never bothering to look back at the girl they once claimed to love.

The police came to the conclusion that he'd ventured into the woods when I didn't come to get him. It was there he had been attacked by a wolf and had his neck and stomach tore up. They told me this with sadness and sympathy, and sometimes I wish it had been that look my mother had met me with when I saw her afterwards. Instead, all I ever saw in her eyes again were the mirroring of my hands covered in blood.

All I ever saw was accusation.

All I ever felt…was hatred.

Because I neglected my brother. I let him die at my own selfish wants.

-.-

_"Tyler! Tyler! Where are you? TYLER!"_

_I scream and shout until my throat is hoarse, and I scout every inch of the park, but he's nowhere to be found. It's dark. I fear the worst. _

_Hours later, after scouting, screaming, searching. Hopelessly running and tripping over tree roots and fighting ferns, swearing at the cuts being made in my face. Falling to my knees and scraping up my palms. _

_My blood mixes with his. _

_I find him amongst the leaves. _

_Green, red, orange, brown, red. _

_Tattered and bruised and ripped apart._

_His eyes are open, staring into the nothingness, into my eyes, penetrating my soul. Like he's calling for me. Like my name is formed on his white lips, "Bella!". Like before he died, the pain made him scream for his sister, his protector, wanting me to save him. _

_Because that's what big sister do. _

_That's what I was supposed to do. _

_I see my name in his blue eyes. Eyes I once detested. Now they're imprinted in my mind, to haunt my dreams forever more. _

_Oh, but I love you Tyler. _

_Please, no. _

_I hold his cold little body in my arms, rocking back and forth as tears stream down my cheeks. My breath is staggered and coming out in pants, my chest constricting. I hear wolves howling in the distance, twigs breaking, and the sound of the air being sniffed. The predator lingering around its prey._

_Oh, Tyler._

_Little brother. _

_No!_

_I didn't mean… I never… I should have…_

_I'm sorry._

_Blood stains my clothes, my hands, my cheeks, and then my lips as I kiss his bloodied hair. _

_His blood…always tainting my hands. Forever. _

_I'm sorry. _

_I love you. _

-.-


	11. Thou wast not born for death

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter:** 11. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

**Rated:** M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley (who sacrificed time of her holiday to edit this! Lordy, woman, you're incredible!)

**A/N: **I have a penchant for Keats, not to mention the fic  
><em>"And with thee fade away"<em> by _Derdriu oFaolain_,  
>yet another story with non-canon vampires…I'm starting to see a pattern.<p>

Did I ever say how long this would be? No? Well… under 20 chapters, is my guess. 15 or so.

-.-

Alec returns to me on a day I don't know the name of, or the number, and he stands silent in the doorway for hours. I rest on the mattress, because even though I have nothing to do and nowhere to go, I still find myself exhausted. Maybe it's the short winter days, making a clutter out of night and day. Or maybe it's the craziness going on. Being held captive by vampires and all… finding out my own _race _is turning its back on me…

Or maybe I'm just coming closer to a decision.

To mate, or not to mate. That is the question.

Shakespeare just said it differently… with a naïve approach to life.

Love cannot be found in the hearts of man. Love for someone other than your family is impossible. Love, I have found out, is for the strong and the living.

I have never been either. I have always been wanting. Never deserving.

I am no longer naïve to life. I consider these past months the turning point of my life, and any recollection of a girl or of a human is gone. I do not believe in love anymore. How can I? If Jasper had really loved his wife, he never would have cheated on her. If he ever really loved me, then he would have ended his marriage with Maria. If he really loved his girls… then he would have shown up to their ballet recitals and stayed home with them. He never would have left if he really loved them all.

And if my parents really loved me… if my _dad _loved me, he would have accepted me as the daughter I was, and not wished for me to be a son. He would have stood up to mom and said, "it wasn't her fault", but he never did. And my mother? Well, if she loved me, she didn't love me as much as she loved Tyler. She wouldn't have pointed her finger at me if she had loved me as much. My parents never practiced love for me to understand it… no wonder I'm so dysfunctional.

So Alec stands in the doorway, and I lie on the mattress. I breathe, he stands stone-still.

It's not like I don't care that he's there. I'm nervous to why he's here, and why he hasn't said anything. And I'm afraid. I always am, but I try to smother the fear below a blasé attitude.

His eyes are on me, I can feel as much. The curtains are closed, though today there is no sun to let through. The sky is covered with grey clouds, and the room is close to pitch dark.

There is a question rumbling around in my head, but when I open my mouth and turn my head towards him, he is gone and the door is shut. As I stare at the door, my eyes drift towards the mark in the wall next to it, remembering my first night here. When my _life _was ruined… the one of many nails in the coffin.

Then I look at the wall, at the fading wallpaper, and at the spot where it has washed out completely and there are seven scratches on the board.

Just seven.

Symbolizing that first week of confusion.

Seven days of hell.

And the rest of the days?

They are forgotten and cast back into blackness.

"You have a wrinkle between your eyes when you do that. All day, as I've been watching you, you make that face as you stare at the ceiling, like you're contemplating when it's going to fall down on you."

I stubbornly don't bother turning my head now.

"Being petulant? It's not becoming of you, at all, _Isabella._"

"Well, captivity doesn't seem to agree with me, _Alec,_" I counter back. "But what would you know about that, anyways?"

A rush of air tells me he's closer, and his shadow paints the wall black. "And here I thought my dear brother told you everything. I've heard most of it, but in my absence I really thought he would have delved into my story as well." When I don't show any reaction, he continues. "Really, human? Nothing? Though I would think if you knew, you wouldn't throw out such comments."

I furrow my brows, and I think of his comment about my wrinkle. "He's told me things about the woman. That you're Italian, and cruel, a…"

"_Cruel?_" he mocks. "Oh, but I am only what I am, human. I'm a vampire, and so I act as one. Though you define it as cruel, I see it as normal. You, a human, may consider yourself strong and wise, but I see you as nothing but food and entertainment. A weak little thing."

Silence follows.

I break it.

Remaining prone on the mattress, I stare at the ceiling and ask, "Then what do you know of being held captive?"

He snorts.

_Snorts. _

Another human trait from a non-human creature.

"I'm not my brother. I won't hold you in my arms and whisper my story in your ear like I care what you think of me. It's simple. I'm ancient, as in Antique-ancient. I was a slave and a gladiator. Beside a Spanish warrior, I fought for my freedom, and lost it in a bed of concubines. There is nothing more and nothing less."

I continue to stare, not really processing his voice. Smooth and silky. So that is his story? A slave. He too, turned against his will. Nevertheless, does that excuse his behavior? Shouldn't the curse of his life make him want to be human? Like the vampire stories I know of, they bask in mansions and fine clothing, acting like a human. Does he go out amongst man and mask his true identity? Somehow I doubt it.

"Now, do you think different of me?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. Yet Edward's story leaves you in turmoil. Do you know why?"

I finally turn my head, and am taken back a little by just how handsome he is this close. A killer in disguise, but such a delectable disguise it is. The blue, European eyes, the dark brown hair, the hard angles, and defined jaw. He's so much like Edward in beauty. Alike in knowing their looks are given to them to attract food.

Like me.

Dinnertime.

"Lean back."

I haven't realized I've leaned in, but I do as he says, breathing in deep. God, he smells good.

And God, that is so unfair.

"Do you wish to know why? It's because you don't care whether I am good or bad, but you do with him. Because you _want _him. And Isabella," he quips. "That is dangerous for the both of you. His venom will turn you crazed and him forlorn, and I will not do to him as he did to me. The loss of it… is not something I wish for anyone."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… when you see an opportunity… take it."

My eyes return to the ceiling, focusing on a cobweb and a fly trapped in it, turning in despair to get out, but remaining trapped. In grief, and mourning, and loneliness, I say whatever comes to mind.

"I just wanted to die."

"Be careful what you wish for."

-.-

He left food for me.

Out of kindness?

I realize I didn't get to ask him about the blonde woman. Why she was here. How she knows. Or is she a vampire? No— not possible. She walked slowly like a normal person, and she made the stairs creak.

But how can I determine the normality of the undead? I've only really "met" two— I don't count the French newborn— all I know of them is that they are:

Beautiful.

Strong.

Fast.

Bloodthirsty.

Evil.

Edward was right when he said I know of nothing reaching farther than the tip of my nose.

It's what makes me deadly. The selfishness of caring only for myself and what's good for _me. _

So I tell myself to stay put, to stay strong, to resist him— although he makes it hard for me to do so. When he holds me like I'm a precious china-doll, he makes me feel wanted and cherished, something I've never really felt before. His looks don't make it better, even if I know it's really a façade to attract his prey. But it's human, it's carnal, it's a craving to desire the beautiful, and I'm no exception.

Peter was handsome with a boy-ish charm which captivated me from the first time I saw him.

Jasper held the mysterious, indie attraction. With the shirts, sometimes suspenders, the leather jacket. No socks, no shoes, and he still got service. A pretty man with a strong and smoldering edge.

And Edward? He's pure danger, and hard angles. He's the silent man in the bar, looking over the women on display, choosing whom he wants to take home, and then just taking them, because they will always say yes.

I am shallow.

I realize that.

But I can't choose to become evil incarnate because he makes me want to find a bed and stay in it with him for days at the time.

He's more than his looks.

He's bloodthirsty, cruel, evil, manipulative. He has no sense of empathy or sympathy towards humans. Not even when he _was _human. And to add to it? He wants to bestow this curse to someone else— me— because he doesn't want to be lonely. He wants a mate. Someone to be evil with him.

The human thing for him to do would be to kill himself to spare humans of pain and sufferings. From the grief of losing loved ones

Isn't it?

Would_ I_?

_Will _I, if that is the route I end up going? Or am forced to take?

I break out in tears, and pull the red curtains apart. A faint moon is rising behind the grey clouds, as if an omen. Ominous.

-.-

The house is cast into an eerie silence.

Unnatural.

I'm used to hearing _some_ noises here and there. A growl, at times. Something breaking. It hasn't been noteworthy before, because I know it's the creatures below me doing… something. Mostly it's at night, when I'm supposed to be sleeping, the sound of things breaking have often woken me up. In the aftermath, I have always lain there completely petrified wondering if another vampire would come crashing through the door and kill me.

Whatever happened to that Frenchman who tried?

Why have no others tried?

Why was he even here?

What kind of place _is _this?

These are the thoughts which have caused my insomnia dozens of times.

But now… now I wonder something else.

_Why _is it so silent?

I startle upright on the mattress and get to my feet. I rush to the window and pull the curtains apart, and there I see it. A startling searing yellow sun. No clouds. A blue sky. A robin flying past the window, and I follow it with my eyes. It flies down the street, landing on an unlit street lamp, where it perches itself and flexes its wings twice, before turning into stone. Just sitting there.

And it's still dead silent.

Alec's voice echoes through the room suddenly, " _when you see an opportunity…take it."_, as if he was here right next to me, telling me to run. But I'm grasping the sill, my knuckles white with fear.

Can I?

Is this the time?

Will I finally be free from this everlasting purgatory of waiting?

Where I've been waiting to die, in one way or another.

I'm at a loss, because suddenly reality and the outside world seems terrifying to me. The people. The space. The burdens. Loans, bills, apartments, jobs. The grief, the loneliness, the depression. The constant reminder, as I walk down streets or stand on the subway, that I am, and forever will be, alone.

And what if I go? Then what? Night will come sometime, and then he will find me. He knows my smell, and has tracked me before…who says he can't do it again?

But I smell. Reek. My entire body feels disgusting from a lack of showering, shaving, any basic human need to be _clean. _Does that stand higher on the list? Higher than a fear of being cast back into captivity?

_At least I'll be clean, _I think bitterly to myself.

_At least I'll feel clean and smell like something more human than this. _

Minutes tick by, and my hands lose their strength. With a heavy breath, I step away from the window and close my eyes, trying to concentrate on sounds. But there are none. None other than my own beating heart and weighted breath.

Alone.

When I reopen my eyes, I clear my head from thoughts as I step towards the door.

If it's open, I run.

If it's closed, I know it's a sick joke.

The floorboards creak beneath my feet with every step, and as I reach the handle, I pray a silent prayer for all of this to be a nightmare.

My hand tightens around it.

Pressing down.

Out.

The door screeches open.

I almost cry right then and there, but I have to keep strong.

I'm not out yet.

Far from it.

Vampires may be lurking around the corners.

This could be a test.

But it's a risk I'm willing to take, and run as fast as my feet can carry me down the stairs, ignoring the horrible sounds. I run, I run, and I run. Down the hall, remembering where my feet brought me the last time, leaving doors slamming against the walls as I go. Down the many steps of this ungodly tall building, my breath laboring, I try to best not to stumble and fall.

Try not to spill blood.

Because if Edward is not here, but someone else is, I'm not sure I'll survive. Without his protection, no matter the reasons behind it why, I know that any attempts of surviving will be fruitless. I am grateful to him, for that monumental thing. For not letting the vampire kill me…

I _want _to live.

So I run.

My escape is close, as the walls blur past me, and the staircases run out around six stories down. I've come to a place I've never been— or never was awake to see— and my surroundings astound me. Covered in dust and pale grey covers, furniture is placed neatly around a large living room; a table, two sofas, an ottoman, a grandfather clock, whose pendulum has stopped working.

Like time has ceased and ended in this house of death.

And I am here because of Edward.

I hate him. I hate him so much— for he makes me see my reflection in the mirror, and forces me to own up to it. Beyond the clothes, beyond the excess fat, beyond the layers of skin and flesh and blood, he makes me stare into my own eyes and see my soul; mirroring a dark, haunted, empty space. Cold. Vast. Withered.

I can't find myself. I drown in my surroundings— suffocating.

The silver lining is I'm thrust back into reality; to this unreal world of vampires and death, of dark corners and sinful acts. I thought I knew the worst— Sander's Brothel, cheating husbands, killer daughters, spiting parents. I thought the worst of the world ended in Europe with the shattering of the Berlin Wall, of the Soviet's downfall, the bombings of Japan, but what I didn't know was that the true dangers of the world have never been fought. They are constant, always lurking in dark corners, threatening to be exposed by the scorching sunlight of tattle tales.

_Let me breathe!_

_Don't make me see!_

I hate him. Edward is my nemesis, but I can't resist him. That frightens me to death, and I take in one big breath – the scent of vampire, blood, and sex filling me up one last time. Then I step silently through the room to a dark wooden door, turn the handle, the door opens, and I step into the light.

As I shut the door and exhale, I cleanse myself of the last of him and his world. I say goodbye to the lonely attic, Alec's sinister mood, and Edward's attempt to make me love him.

Why does it feel like such a loss?

Why does this feel like grieving?

His voice, his face, his eyes changing from green to red; I cannot picture them in my mind.

It strikes me, as I stand on the doorstep and look up at the old dark building that looks abandoned; this is all too easy. I expect him to burst out the door any second and whisk me back into his darkness. I stand there, almost hoping that is what he'll do. But it dawns on me that even though it would only be a split second; Edward hates the sun more than he hates the French. He shies away from me even in the mornings, always leaving me to my lonesome in the day and rejoining me at night, all because of that blasted sun.

He's turned me into a creature of the night too, I don't think he even knows it, but I sleep all day just to stay up with him at night.

Not that he was visited me for well over a week.

Another minute goes by and I lean my head against the door, my teeth starting to clatter from the cold, the shock— as if I can feel his presence on the other side. It's bullshit though; I can feel nothing but the cold breeze on my skin.

My tattered and bruised skin.

Shaky legs.

My lips chapped and dry. My eyes sore. My greasy hair tangled.

My feet are bare, exposed, and I stare for a minute at my toes, dreading walking down the pavement.

Expecting him to open the door and pull me in, I walk down the two stone steps, and am shocked with the sensation of freezing cold beneath the soles of my feet. My teeth instantly begin to chatter again, and I wrap my arms around myself, and continue to walk.

And walk.

And walk.

Never once do I look over my shoulder to sneak a peek at the house which has been my "home" for well over a month.

This is my goodbye.

To Alec.

To Edward.

To vampires.

And I hate myself for feeling sad as I leave them all behind.

-.-


	12. On the other side

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **12. On the other side, there is no grass

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N: **This may be the longest chapter yet, and I had a tough time writing it,  
>so I apologize for the longer-than-usual wait. Hopefully I'll get the next one up faster, but I'm<br>not making any promises. So, here goes…

-.-

Obviously, I don't have the keys to my apartment. When I went up to the roof to end my life, I was in a haze and so focused on the task at hand, so can't remember what I did to them. So I stand outside my apartment building, shoeless, sockless, my feet numb from the cold. I cross my arms in front of my chest, a futile attempt of warming myself, and catch a sniff of myself.

Dirty.

Gross.

On the way here, I've been looked at as if I were homeless. Looking at my clothes - the grey sweater I got from Edward, and the torn and bloody jeans I've worn for over a month - I can't blame their accusation. It's instinct, even in New York, to look at the beggars like they're below you. Because you work. You have a home. You live. They don't. And that's how they look at me; like I'm a lazy slob, because I look a mess.

The sun still shines brightly, but winter's wind can't be stopped. Government-planted trees sway with naked branches, like they're dancing. Or crying. Begging. Pleading to be saved and be given salvation.

Just help.

The door opens, and I take a step back. Like I don't want to be affiliated with the building. Hoping the person exiting is not someone who knows who I am. I want to be invisible in that moment, feeling just as bad as I did at fifteen - wanting to blend in with the background.

"Miss Swan?"

I recognize the sound of my landlord's voice - rugged, raw, Russian. One hand on the handle, one foot outside the door, staring at me with shocked eyes. The man is fifty-something, five foot nothing, and is completely and utterly terrifying. His mere demeanor radiates fear and a demand of respect, like he's been to the end of the world and back, seen wars fought across continents, the iron curtain veil Europe, and never even flinched - you just don't want to mess with him.

"I thought - what happened -" He stutters out unfinished sentences, stepping out completely and rushing down the five steps to the pavement. When he reaches me, I almost expect him to hug me tight - even if we've never exchanged more than pleasantries and talk about payments - but then I see his face is painted with anger.

Irritation.

"You've been gone. I was just about to clear out your things." He wrinkles his nose, blinks and spits out in disgust, "God… you _reek_." "You have two days to pay, or get out."

He is unbiased, untouchable, and uninterested in my current state. In under a minute, he's managed to make it clear to me just how little I mean to the world. How I affect no one. How my disappearance was only noticeable because I couldn't make rent.

Pathetic.

Depressive.

"Umm… yeah. I'll get right on that. But, sir, I've managed to misplace my keys. They're probably in my apartment, but could you just open it for me?"

It doesn't take a genius to decipher the emotion on his face.

More irritation.

"_Fine, _Miss Swan."

I follow him up silently, trying to make as little sound as possible, taking two steps at a time to keep up with him. For a man in his fifties, Stavros is a fast man with no time to waste. Time is money, and he just can't get enough of either. For the three years I've lived in this building, I can more or less count on one hand the times I've actually talked to him; the rest of our interactions only consisting of nods or a simple look. I had no more than the bag of clothes I came to New York with, and the promise to work at the Ritz Carlton, when I begged him to give me a break.

To this day, I don't know why he caved. The man appears almost indifferent most of the time, but why question his decision to give me a break? _"Miss a payment, and you're out,_" is what he said to me. After that, I did everything I could to find more jobs. Up until I got the job at Billy's, I'd cleaned dishes, handed out pamphlets, stood on the corner in a chicken-suit advertising for a restaurant - hell I even degraded myself to apply at a strip club.

Thinking of Lady Sanders and Sarah, I'm glad I never heard back from that seedy place. I could have ending up like Sarah, more or less raped repeatedly on a daily basis, fucked to the brink of death where the only way out is a needle.

Inside my apartment, everything is as I left it, just filthier. Dust gathers in the corners, and cobwebs form on the ceiling. I stand on the threshold like a stranger, hardly recognizing my own apartment. Not home, just apartment. But still, I've lived here for years, and yet I stand here like I've opened the wrong door. It's all unfamiliar, and for a split second I think that maybe… the attic is more familiar to me now.

I know the every square inch of that place. Where the wallpaper is easier to peel off, where the floorboard creaks the most, and how many nails are in the ceiling. I can picture the sun lighting up the room like it's the fondest memory I have, but remembering Jasper and myself on the fire escape is too blurry to see in my mind.

I'm a stranger.

The door shuts behind me - my landlord disappears down the hall.

Did my new neighbor realize I was gone? Or did he just relish in the silence? Must have been nice not having to deal with random breakdowns and bitch fights in the hall. If Mrs. Cope had been here, I'm confident she would have worried. Done something. Mr. Cope would have demanded police interference. But they're gone. Like everyone else I've ever cared about.

The apartment is cold as hell, but still warmer than the outside, and the feelings in my toes start to come back. No longer numb, I step further in, wondering if I'll feel more at home if I just see everything.

The kitchen is my first stop.

Pans and dishes and spatulas; they were my dream at one point, one I tried to keep alive for so long. Now I stare at the cupboards with void emotions. The fridge reeks. Inside, tomatoes have grown fur, and the cheese has turned a diseased microbial green. Decomposing. Disintegrating. Dissolving. I slam the refrigerator door shut, trying not to gag at the disgusting smell, and I remove myself from the one place I've ever found peace.

I venture around the apartment, as if in a haze, looking at the furniture and the abstract pictures on the wall. They were gifts from Jasper…

_Jasper. _

Swiftly, I turn around with a crazed urge to search. I run to the hallway, to find it void of anyone empty. The kitchen is just the same. But in the bedroom, I stand in the middle of the room, looking at my bed, looking at me.

My portrait is in the middle of the bed. I can't remember placing it there, but I don't exclude the possibility that I did. Did I stare at myself before I went to kill myself. Did I stare at the beautiful curves and the subtle pink scar on the thigh? Did I stand right here and look at his signature, letting it spur on my urge to die? Seeing his name now certainly does. I am responsible for his death. It's my fault his wife is without a husband, and his daughters without a father. If I'd only kept to myself…

I feel filthy.

I feel like every inch of my body is covered in dirt and death, and I tear off my clothes. Edward's grey shirt falls to the ground, and is covered by my tattered pants. In the bathroom, I make a beeline to the shower. In there, the water is tepid and the pressure is low, and more than twenty minutes pass before I feel remotely clean. I stare at my feet as dirt swirls down the drain, and run my hands through my hair. I shampoo thrice, but the feeling that it's greasy doesn't go away.

When I push the plastic shower curtain to the side and step down on the tiles, I cover my head with a towel like a turban, but leave my body bare. I catch sight of myself in the half-length mirror, and what I see makes me gasp.

Sunken in cheeks.

Greying skin.

And my eyes? They're the same dull brown color they've always been, but the small amount of life that used to occupy them has vanished. Like the fire once ignited by Jasper has dulled down and died. Death has nestled inside me, growing stronger with each passing day, and now my body is being affected.

I'm thinner. Definitely. I touch my stomach and the roundness that once curved my abdomen is gone. I feel weak. My legs fight to keep me up, and once I look at my knees the wobbliness doesn't surprise me. Old bruises have turned yellow and green, and pink paints my flesh where I once scraped my knees on the ground. The skin is tender to the touch, and I wince as I press my finger against a newer bruise.

That is when I notice they are painted all over me. My arms, my thighs. Small healed scars are scattered next to them. I let my hands follow them, pressing and wincing. At least I feel the pain. I know I'm alive. This is not a dream.

I end up pulling the towel off my head, and at the hairline a small wound has reopened. Bleeding. I let it bleed. The drops of blood trickle down my forehead in a straight line, through my right eyebrow, and I close my eyelid as the blood runs over it down to my cheek. I follow it with my eyes in the mirror, as it curves and falls from my chin to my chest.

I wash it away with water.

But I still see it.

The blood on my hands.

Tainting me.

At least it is my own this time.

I shake my head, trying to rid myself of those thoughts. In my hours of freedom, I want to be somewhat _happy. _Or, at least, not in complete depression. I know Edward is coming. There's no denying the fact that he'll easily find me. I could try to flee, but what's the point? Should I run for the rest of my life because a vampire wants me to be his mate? I don't want him at all, but what other choices to I have?

Back in my bedroom, I prop the portrait of myself against the wall on the floor, and as the sun sets behind skyscrapers, I lie down in my bed. Comfortable. Queen size. Cotton sheets. I wrap them around me in attempt to keep warm, and I fall asleep immediately on the soft mattress, thinking this will be my last sleep.

-.-

_"Bella?"_

_"Tyler?"_

_In the darkness, I see nothing but a bright light, but I know it's him. A little angel. _

_"Why did you let me die, Bella?"_

_His nickname for me takes my breath away, and my chest aches. _

_"I didn't mean to. Tyler. I'm so sorry."_

_"Why did you let him take me, Bella? Why didn't you save me?"_

-.-

My mother told me when I was little, that bad dreams are reflections of our worries and fears. She told me this when she loved me. When I was still her only gem. Before Tyler came along and became her wonder. The bad dreams I had back then came from worrying about school. Before I was obese, I was chubby. And kids are mean. Snide comments attacked me every day, and I resented going to that hellhole. The only thing that made it worthwhile was Chelsea, my best friend.

My bad dreams now go deeper than a fear of being bullied.

When I awake, I wake with a gasp. First I try to remember my dream, but all that comes to mind are black trees and rivers of red blood. It's haunting, but as seconds pass, even that fades, leaving my mind troubled and annoyed. My body is covered with Goosebumps, and when my eyes adjust to the darkness in the room, I realize the window is open.

I sit shock still.

Waiting.

"Where are you?" I say into the darkness. "I know you're there. Say something. How long does this silence have to go on? Do you intend to torture me forever?"

Forever with him will be torture enough.

I just want to hear him say it. Hear his voice before I die. Before I'm cursed like he is.

There is no answer, but I wait for it, expecting to hear his cackle and his drabbles about my smell, my taste. I wait. And wait. But there is nothing but silence.

I get out of bed, gasping when my feet touch the cold floor, and step carefully to the window.

Somehow I know… I know he's been here.

I can't sense him or any of that bullshit. I can't smell him in the air. It's just logic to me. _He _can sense _me. He _can smell _me. _That he has picked up the trace and followed me during the night is painfully obvious. What I don't understand is why I'm still alive. Why I'm still breathing.

_And why couldn't he at least have shut the window when he went?_ My teeth chatter from the cold and my breath turns foggy. New York's night sky is lit by city light; the stars are hidden, unable to compete. Sounds ping off the tall buildings all around; cars honking, a distant police siren wailing, the chatter of hookers walking down the street beneath me. I sharpen my ears to hear him, to filter the urbane clatter. Something.

"Are you there?" I ask again, whispering into the night. "If you are… let me be. Please. I don't want to be with you."

At all.

The man I want to be with, the man I love…is dead. Edward killed him. Love is impossible for me now. I can't ever love again. And I can't be with _him. _

"Let me be. Just please. Let me be," I chant in a whisper knowing if he is near, he can hear me. Why don't I scream my plea? I know, I don't want the neighbors to think the _crazy train_ hasn't pulled into the station at my apartment.

I stand for minutes by the open window— though they feel like hours— waiting for his response. A sign. A hurried rush of air. But there is nothing. Nothing but me, standing frozen by the window, talking to myself.

Maybe he has left. Maybe he came after me and realized I'm not worth chasing down.

My heart sinks at the thought, morbid as it may be. Like I want him to want me. Just wanting to be desired— although it's my blood he wants. I do realize that is one of my greatest faults: my constant need to be accepted and wanted and appreciated by others. A psychologist would say, in layman terms, I have daddy issues. When Tyler came along, my father never really gave me a second thought. My needs and wants were put aside. Now I strive to be number one in the ways I can.

Never to succeed.

A crappy housekeeper.

A slow bartender.

Now I'm neither.

Silence commences, and I feel at a loss of what to do.

I shut the window, and sit down on the bed. The night is still young, and my alarm clock on the nightstand shows a shattering 3:02am. A yawn rips through me. I'm exhausted. I haven't slept that long, and the past month's hardships still linger inside me, still wearing on my bones. But I can't go back to sleep. I can't bring myself to do anything.

The moonlight shines through the room, settling on the portrait.

_Don't cry. Don't cry, _I tell myself, but still I feel the tears well up.

My chest contracts and my nose stings. An image of Jasper flashes through my mind— even if it's not real, even if it's a mix of Titanic and my own imagination— where he's awake next to me, looking at me while I sleep. Watching me. Staring. Adoringly. Awed. His eyes raking over me as his hands fly over a sheet of paper, drawing the outline. Knowing he had my body memorized, and must have done the painting based on that, makes my heart swell and tear asunder at the same time.

To imagine that he cared for me in that way hurts the most.

Knowing he betrayed me by lying is not the worst. It's knowing we could've had a chance. He could have left his wife. He could have told me the truth down the road. And then we could've moved in together, started our life together. Marriage. Kids. My life could've have gone so differently.

But it was ruined.

By Edward.

And that's the main reason why I'll never in my life find it in myself to care for him even a fraction of how I cared for Jasper. He's handsome. He's dark. But apart from his looks, there is not a single trait that makes me tingle.

He didn't hold me while I slept, or stroke my thigh as we spooned— not that we ever had.

He didn't hum when he ate— not that I'd ever seen him eat.

He didn't kiss my forehead before he left.

I don't know anything about him, other than that he's done horrible things in his life, both as a human and vampire. He has no respect for life. He has no respect for women. Flesh and blood means nothing to him, but it means everything to me.

That is why I now, at 3:15am, walk to the phone with determination. The cold floor sends chills up my spine with each step, but my mind is set. Flesh and blood. Mom and dad. I realize it's a futile attempt, and they will probably not even answer. Or if they do, they'll hang up.

But I dial the number; they have never changed it.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

On the fourth ring, I lose the little hope I have, but then—

"Hello?"

His voice is groggy and worn, but it's still clearly my father. The manliness. Musky. Throaty.

"Hello?" he says again, a little annoyed.

"I… uh…" I stammer, panicked. My mouth is dry and my eyes are wide. My head is empty. _What do I say? _I made the decision to call because I've been kidnapped, held captive, and put through mental torture unfathomable to me… and because Edward's lack of devotion of family made me realize how much I love my own— despite their lack of love for me.

"Who's there? Who's calling?"

"Dad?"

"Isabella? Is that you? Why are you calling this late? And on Christmas Eve?"

_Christmas Eve? _

I haven't realized it's Christmas, but looking back at my walk home— flashes of Santas, Salvation Army donation pots, red and gold filling shop windows, and people walking around with bags and wrapped presents invaded my brain. I realize I'd ventured home blind. My mind had been set on getting home and warm, never registering the yuletide joy reflected in people's faces. Until they saw me.

"Yes dad… it's me. I just… I needed to call you. I - I - I miss you and mom so much. Daddy, I want to come home."

"You can't."

He doesn't say more than that, but in the background I hear voices. My mother's voice. And my dad saying, _"It's no one honey. Just Paul drunk dialing again. I'll take it outside, you go back to bed."_

Mommy.

How I miss her.

Not counting the last months before I left— where she screamed and swung her wine-bottles at me, cussed me out and prayed I'd die— when she was a great mother. She made me soup when I was sick, and even joined me when I went on my walks. She was the one who took me to the doctor's when I first decided to lose weight, and helped me through the entire process. Though Tyler hated not having chips and candy in the house, my mother never bowed to his pleas, in respect of my lack of self-control. She did that for me. She loved me. My mom.

There's rustling on the line, and it's my dad moving the phone out of the room. Water starts running, and I realize he's gone to the bathroom and turned on the tap. He really doesn't want mom to hear it's me…and that hurts.

"Listen… Isabella. Honey. I- I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to ask you never to call us again." The world stops turning, and his words are like a clenching hand around my heart. Squeezing. Squeezing. Until it ruptures and bleeds dry. "Your mother and I have finally managed to start moving on. She's going to AA, and I, I'm home more to watch her. Things are better for us. We're starting to heal. You calling just reopens the wounds, and I love my wife too much to see her go through all this again."

I'm stumped.

Fractured.

And pissed off.

"Really, dad?" I squeak through my tears running hot down my cheeks. "You don't think I'm devastated? I'm the one who found him! I'm the one who carried him out of the woods. I did that. Me! I know I was selfish. I know I did a horrible thing, but you make it sound like I wanted him to die, dad. I _loved _him." I choke on my own words, and alongside his hand is a knife twisting and turning inside me.

"I love him. He was my brother. And _I_ didn't kill him. I made horrible choices, dad, and I'll never forgive myself for that, but I'm also your daughter. Daddy. Your flesh and blood. Don't you love me at all?"

He doesn't say anything.

And that is the moment I finally shatter. I realize I have physically felt that ball-peen hammer systematically tap-tap-tapping at my interior and its last blow has fallen.

"Okay. Dad. I won't call again. Ever. You don't love me… I just, I just have to tell you I'll never stop loving you and mom, even if you can't even find it in your heart to forgive your own daughter."

I hang up.

And my past's final bonds are cut.

-.-

The bathroom door is wide open, and the dim light from the window is the only thing lighting up the room. Maybe it's idiotic, shaving in almost darkness, but for some reason I don't mind the risk.

_Ouch. _

Blood seeps from my leg. Just a small drop. I continue shaving my legs. Over a month of no razor-availability does horrible things to a woman's body. Horrible. A few minutes later, my legs are smooth— so is the rest of me, and I actually smile. Bittersweet, but I'm smiling.

Talking to my dad only made me realize there's no reason to think I have anyone. I mean, I've known for a while that I'm all alone, but there's always been a lingering hope inside me saying: they will answer, one day. One day. Today he answered and threw me away at the same time. I almost wish he hadn't picked up at all. Then I could have held on to the false hope they still love me. But they don't. He made that perfectly clear.

Clear silence.

But even if I have no one— and I know Edward will come for me one day— I used to have someone.

Someone who could make me smile just by looking at me.

Who made me beautiful.

I walk out of the bathroom and put on my black stockings, pull the dress over my head, and sit down and slip on the low heels.

It's the same dress I wore for his funeral— it only seems fitting to use it now as well, when I'll go to say goodbye once more. For the last time.

-.-

In Forks, the streets were practically void of human life on Christmas Eve, except for when people would drive back from Church. But in New York, people swirl the pavement— doing last minute shopping, eating out for dinner, and even partying in a few select clubs. The city that never sleeps does not slow down for the holidays. The busses are packed, the trains are overfilled, and the subway is unbearable.

Traveling to Hoboken has never felt longer.

A few miles feel like a thousand. A death march.

But when I get there, it's easy to navigate though the city, and soon enough I find myself standing in a graveyard. A small coat of snow has stayed on the grass. Flowers put down by loved ones are dead— older ones have turned black and withered. Lights stand on top of stones.

_In loving memory_

Three words paint stone after stone as I pass them. But they don't just say in loving memory. What they really say is "I love you". We love you. We'll never forget. "In loving memory" is saying a thousand words, but professing only three.

His stone is a lot like the others.

Beloved son, husband, and father.

Date of birth and death.

But his grave is bare.

Like my soul as I stoop to my knees. The snow soaks through my stockings immediately, chilling my knees, but I can't help it. Here lies the man whom in the act of knocking on my door, gave me the best time of my life. Gave me confidence. Who ordered me around on kitchen chairs and fire escapes, told me to pout my lips and flip my hair. _"Smile. Frown. Intensify your eyes." _He twisted and turned me in more ways than one— and he did more than excite my body.

I truly loved him.

Nothing will ever change that. Not his lies. Not his deceit. Nor his death.

"I love you. I'm sorry."

How many times have I not said that and thought those words? Professing my love and apologizing at the same times has become my trademark. My thing.

"If it hadn't been for me, you'd still be alive. You'd still be able to see your little girls. I'm so sorry I took you away from that. I never knew…"

_Never knew vampires existed, and that one of them would kill you because you had my scent on you. _

The minutes tick on, and I stand up. A bench is just on the other side of the gravel path next to his grave, and I brush away the snow and sit down. It's still light outside, though the afternoon's dimming clouds are huddling together on the dark sky. The naked branches on the trees sway and dance in the wind. A death dance.

I sit there and reminisce.

_"God, you're beautiful."_

_"Want to come over for a drink?_

_"You know… I'm looking for a model for a picture-series I'm doing."_

_"Hey, I'm just calling to see if you're free tonight. I'm in town and you, my lovely lady, deserve a night out."_

He really was sweet to me.

But then I recall sitting on the couch on this exact day one year ago, pining for him, wondering where he was.

And I know now.

He was with his wife.

"What are _you _doing here?"

I jump to my feet, startled, and turn to face the reason Jasper was never mine. Not fully.

"I'm here to pay my respects," I say smoothly, and it's the truth.

Maria stands there, holding a candle in her gloved hands, staring at me with a deadly glare. If looks could kill, I'd be dead a thousand times. Still, even through her obvious rage, I can see why Jasper loved her. Or, fell for her. She's beautiful. Italian. With dark curls and exotic features. Petite, but obviously full of fire. Her back is straight, like she's been to hell and back and proud of it. Rising above all challenges.

I've seen her only two times: one time broken, another time grieving, but this is the first time I've ever seen her fully enraged.

"Don't you ever fucking come here again. Do you hear me, whore? He never loved you. He never loved you! He loved _me_. Don't you get it? He never told you about me, because you were just a fling. A mindless fuck.

Her words sting and threaten to vaporize the pieces the hammer missed, and I start backing up. She follows. The candle drops to the ground, but doesn't break as she continues to shout. "He never loved you. He loved me. He always came back to me, don't you see? You were a plaything, Isabella. You were his toy." She's right in my face now, and in her eyes I see nothing but red-hot fury. Resentment. There is no holding back for her now.

"You're nothing. I was his everything. Me. Not you. All you ever did was distract him - and it's your fault he died."

My fault. Edward had said that as well.

Her words blur together, and I turn to run away. She remains shouting by his grave, and this is my goodbye to him. I leave him, with her words like a fresh and painful wound, with the woman he truly belonged with.

Out on the street, the night has taken over, and the street lamps illuminate the ground as I pace down the sidewalk. Walking alone. Always alone. And now I know.

I have nothing left to live for.


	13. Watch me kill

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **13. Watch me kill, and love me

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

Special shout out to Laurence Alex who helped me with the French!

**A/N: **NB! This picks up in chapter 11 - so Isabella is still in the house in the  
>beginning of this… keep that in mind. Sorry if it causes confusion. I think, though,<br>that this chapter will answer a lot of questions, and perhaps turn some heads…

Side warning post-posting: This chapter contains somwhat graphic violence/torture etc. Step at own risk.

-.-

"The silent treatment? Brother, have you watched soap operas again?"

Cackles echo around the room as Alec's snide remark does not go unnoticed by the five occupants perched on various furniture in the room. The one in the dining room lets out an amused bark half way through his meal.

Lately, Alec has not allowed feeding in the house because of our human occupant, but this vampire remains adamant. And dangerous. Refusing to follow orders. Being _obvious_ in his eating. Where most carve the bodies of our kills to look like animal attacks, the work of a human murderer, and so on, this one settles for the neck. Nothing else. He bites in and drains his victims, and disposes of them openly.

If he keeps up this blatant disregard for orders it, he will suffer at the hands of Alec. As the oldest, the Alpha, the one who allows vampires in this house, Alec feels it is his responsibility to make sure they all behave. Like running a kindergarten - cleaning up after the naughty children who spill their milk. There are no rules about keeping house. There are no kings and queens of the immortal world who follow up on violators. But there is an understanding between us all to keep hidden in the shadows, and those who do not agree and threaten us all, are killed.

Besides, no one likes a sloppy eater.

I growl at them all, and silence veils the room. Besides Alec, I am the oldest in the room. And with age comes strength, tactics, and strategies. I can kill all of them swiftly - tear off their limbs and burn the pieces before they draw another thought. But I won't, I've surpassed the stage where I kill out of annoyance.

"Oh don't be upset, Edward. Where is your sense of humor? Have a drink, relax."

This time, his attempt at a joke goes by unnoticed. The others think he's being serious; that he wants me to feed, but he's not funny. His crack at me is indiscreetly hinting that I should drink of Isabella. That I should get it over with. He thinks I won't be able to turn her when the time comes. He thinks I'll buckle at the taste of her, and drain her dry.

His lack of hope is disheartening.

Good thing my heart is dead.

"Oh I don't want to spoil my appetite, Alec, but you can go… take these lowlifes with you. A good group hunt. Why don't you call your pet?"

Eyes shift between us, anxious to hear our landlord's response.

For me, this is amusing. Just three hundred years ago I wouldn't dare to say something like that to him. Now I spout off snide remarks like I really am his brother, equal in strength and age. Although, in times of dire seriousness, I know to hold my tongue.

"Leave."

Within a second, the room is empty. When Alec speaks, they obey. The dinner in the dining room is abandoned, and I can smell the small amount of blood left in the girl. Young…virgin… I got a look at her when the vampire brought her in; tattered and worn. A homeless girl, most likely, or a battered child. Either way, the scent of her blood is slightly distracting, and at first I don't hear what my maker says.

"I've told you before, and I will not say it again. Talk to me like that again, and I _will _tear your head off."

"So serious, Sire?"

He scowls and bares his teeth. His entire stance changes, and by instinct, my right foot slides back a bit, my knees bending.

He lets out a growl. "The jokes are only fun for a little while, brother. Like your little girl upstairs."

"And yours is so much different?"

He cracks a crooked smile. "Very much so. At least she knows what will happen to her. Her insanity is my pleasure. Yours is… so resistant. I've said it before, fuck her or suck her, but do it soon. I'll only tolerate her presence in this house for so long. She's has already caused a ruckus in the lines."

"We are not at war. You can't possibly think these trash-rats are your soldiers."

He shakes his head, and clenches his fist. I do the same, never stepping back. The moment I do, he'll have my head. Retreating is a weakness he does not tolerate.

"If they are, then this house is my Army base. That makes you my _Executioner Generale_, or at least, _bosatta torterare. _Speaking of torture, how's our French friend doing?"

I growl.

"You knew he was a loose cannon, yet you let him into this house knowing he'd break. You knew he'd go for her throat!"

"I was hoping you would break before him," he says sarcastically, and the spite in his voice makes me want to take back my accusation. "Really, what do you think of me, brother? After all this time, all these years… this is how highly you think of me?"

I don't. Not really. Throughout the centuries, we have been each other's companions. I feel more of a family connection to him, than I ever did to my human family. Although I call him Sire out of spite at times, he is more a father and a brother, than anyone else have ever been to me. I owe him my life - because he granted me eternity, and I have never held any ill against him for it.

Losing up my stance, I shake my head. "No."

"Because it wasn't me who lunged at her… it was him. He's the one who almost killed her, because he's young and foolish. He almost killed your _mate,_ Edward." As he emphasizes on mate, I cringe. I still remember the agony he laid upon me when I killed Rosalía. He calls me a torturer? All I know have I learned through him - through my own pain. But I know the pain he made me feel was only a projection of his own ache.

And it's a hurt I don't wish upon anyone.

Anyone, but those who do the same to me.

Because Laurent almost managed to inflict that pain on me, he suffers alone. In the basement is a remodeled room with concrete walls and a steel door separating him from one of his arms and legs. For a healthy vampire, the concrete and steel would take little effort to get past. But for him, not so much. He's wounded, starved- crazed.

The thought of his pain makes me grin.

The thought of her shedded blood makes my venom boil.

"It was him who did that, brother. Him. And what would you do then? Walk alone? Without your mate?"

Alec's words echo off the walls, and hit me from all angles. The thought of life without her seems vaster and colder. The life I live is glorious and dark, but without her, it would be reduced to simply feeding. Alec went through those motions for hundreds of years - but then again, he got over his loss because she was a bitch. Plain and simple - she wasn't his, but a whore. And that's how I found her: riding an Italian peasant, sucking him dry in all ways possible - and that's why I killed her. Sick of her volatile actions, deceit, and pure evilness.

But Isabella? She's a pure woman. In mind. In soul. Her eyes are haunted, but her past cannot be anything compared to mine. Past her eyes, she's beautiful in body - though withering in this house. Yet I want her. Her bite and bark sets off a spark in me - and I want to devour her body.

Knowing she's not given in to me yet is the only reason I haven't fucked her against the walls.

Because that's how I want to change her.

Have her human body screaming as I bite down on her arteries. Change her as she moans my name.

The only difficulty will be not stopping. Bleeding my meals dry as I'm still inside them is nothing new. It is something Alec introduced me to during the French revolution - when the women were desperate to find wealthy men. We stole clothes and walked the streets at night, having our pick of whores. We killed them in ecstasy.

To be her changer… her teacher. Her lover.

Now that is what I call belonging to me fully.

But Laurent is a threat to that. His sheer existence represents the possibility of me living in loneliness.

"He could have killed her. So easily…" Alec pushes.

I see red. My eyes change color, and in a split second, I'm downstairs. The door falls off its hinges. He looks up, dull brown eyes full of horror, hiding behind black dreadlocks. His body looks incomplete without the arm, and there is still seeping venom from the cut where the top of his thigh used to be. He begged when I tore it off… I reveled in the sound.

He shakes in his bonds - simple cuffs are too hard for him to fight - and he knows. His time has come. His death has arrived.

I _am _Le Executioner Generale.

Crazed, I circle him slightly crouched. Teasing. Taunting. Telling. "Slow, or fast. How would you like to go?"

It doesn't matter what he answers. It will be drawn out. Like my pain would have been had I not stopped him that night.

Standing behind him, I hold his neck in one hand, while the other goes to his right ear. The sound of a plea escapes his lips just as I pull… black flesh paints the side of his head, and I throw the ear to the corner, hitting the floor with a faint sound compared to his screams.

_"Non. S'il vous plaît. Arrêtez! Je ne voulais pas la blesser. S'il vous plaît. Ne me tuez pas."_

His pleas go in one ear and out the other - even if I do understand his French ramblings. My time during the revolution taught me enough for me to understand him, but pleading to let him live is fruitless.

Circling to stand right in front of him, I smile menacingly at him… and rip out an eye from its socket. More venom pours from his body as limps are strewn around.

Nose.

Lips.

I place my hands on either side of his ribcage, and press inwards. He cracks and screams. If he could cry, he would be weeping a river. Stepping back, I look down on my masterpiece. In the wooden chair sits only the shredded upper body of a pitiful excuse of a vampire.

Before his attempt to kill Isabella, he had been a poor tactician.

He has no preference.

He's only five years into his immortal life.

Five years is as far he'll go.

I'm doing him a favor, if anything. An excruciating favor, but still. His reckless and messy hunting would have gotten him killed down the line anyways.

I'm just speeding up the process.

Though prolonging it.

Hours waste by, and I alternate between ripping off and reattaching his limbs. His pleas, though fainter, are like music to my ears. I'm _giddy. _I circle him, bounce off the walls in fearful attacks, and even sing little hunting songs I knew as a child. Passed down from the Viking lords, I hum the tunes of the songs they sang as they pillaged villages and villagers...

Upstairs, I hear the living room has filled with bloodthirsty prowlers, but they're all silent.

I cannot smell Alec.

Focusing back on the mess of a vampire, I lean over him, and whisper into the sucking hole that used to be inside his ear.

"Any last words?"

His head hangs, and no sound escapes him. Had he been human, one would think he was passed out, but in reality it's his body slowed down - his venom pumping through him trying to restore itself.

Off comes his head…

-.-

Isabella's body jerks and writhes on the mattress.

I stand in the darkest corner, soundless.

The moon shines through the window, the curtains drawn apart.

She's illuminated.

Like an angel in the dark bleakness.

Her sweater, my sweater, is filled with patches of blood and dirt from the floor. Her smell is not nearly as nice as when I first took her, but the aroma of her blood overpowers the stench. She is beautiful though, and Laurent is just one example of what I will do to protect her.

I will kill for her. Again and again.

Slaughter the world, if it came to it.

To keep her safe… keep her mine. Half of me wants her to see what I've done, but the other half knows she won't understand. She's not complete yet. Once she becomes a vampire, she will see the sacrifices I've made, and admire my work.

It's just a matter of time.

But her writhing intensifies, and words slip by her lips. "Tyler. No. Jasper. Mommy." I frown. I don't like it when she does this. She hasn't talked about her nightmares. I hoped she would when I told her about my past. But to no avail. Her lips are sealed.

The front door opens.

Alec joins the house.

I rejoin him in the living room.

But he's livid. When I arrive down the stairs, the limbs of a body is dumped to the floor. First I think it's Laurent, but the light flesh reveals otherwise.

"What's this?"

"_This, _brother, is the result of sloppiness."

The others cower back against the walls. I am the only one standing unafraid. No one speaks. They just watch the body with tremors. Alec kicks the head closer to them, and they all understand the action, and recognize the face. It's the sloppy eater who brought his dinner to the house.

"I was under the impression I told you to watch him." The question is not directed to anyone specific, and I turn to stand beside him. Side by side, we are the lords of the manner, even if I am only the heir. "Yet I find him on his way here, holding a fully conscious human in his arms. _Screaming._They were noticed," he snaps, and they simultaneously wince. I would too, if I had been on the receiving end of his wrath.

"Burn it. Go. Outside the city. Find somewhere remote. And you," he points to a burly creature at the end of the line. "Take the body in the basement."

They disappear out into the dark night, but it's only hours until dawn will break. Before he can say anything, I try to weasel my way out of my duties. "I should stay to watch for her. A stray might pass and smell her."

But it's shut down on the spot. Alec growls, and now I'm the one cowering. "You bury the bodies which fall at your hand. You know that, brother. It may not be the law, but it's respect for the dead. Don't pass on your responsibility to minions."

"But wha-"

"Heidi is coming. I'll bring up the human's food myself."

I nod, and run after the others, catching up to the burly one who holds the pieces of Laurent.

-.-

Knowing Alec is adamant on keeping our location under wraps from others - considering the risk of them being older, stronger, and able to overpower us if it came to it - I lead the young ones far away from New York City. It's tiresome. Never before have we stayed in one location for so long, and the repetitiveness of it all is just… dull. So over the years we've been here, I've always taken joy from venturing outside the city lines. Once in a while, when needed- a stray vampire gone amuck, or disciplinary actions gone too far - I've killed my kindred kind, just to have an excuse to leave.

An excuse to wander off and feel the wind as I run.

Eventually we stop, in a dark and untamed forest southwest of the city. "Start a fire," I command, and they all spread out to collect wood, while the two carrying the limbs stay put. In seconds, the rest return, and set up a big fire. There's no snow, and the fire rises without trouble. Minutes tick by, and I watch the flame intently.

Like I did when I killed my father.

Like I did when I killed Rosalía.

And now another enemy is put to the ground.

Taking the head from the burly one's arms, I look into the brown eyes of the last threat to Isabella. Holding it by the black locks, I throw it into the flames, hearing it sizzle, and smelling the disgusting odor of burnt hair and flesh.

I watch it turn to ash, and then toss the rest in.

"Throw all of it in," I tell the one holding the sloppy eater's limbs.

They all watch with trepidation. Those flames represent our undoing. Our end. I've heard you feel it when you burn, that you scream loud, but soundless. Then again, no one survives the flames. So who could possibly have told how it feels?

Then their eyes locate me, with the same amount of fear. Because the flames are not their only undoing. I am as well. They dread my wrath as much as they do Alec's, and respect my age as much as his, with good reason. Some might have heard about me back in Europe, but they all have witnessed me killing.

"Sir," the burly one says cautiously. He's bigger than me. Taller. But only twenty years into his immortal life. Had we been human, there's no doubt he'd kill me easily, but I have age as the upper hand. I can read him faster than he can process his own thoughts.

"Yes?" I snap.

"The sun," he quivers, and points to the sky. The orange tinted sky.

"Run."

-.-

Running north, we find a cabin lost in the forest. Probably a lumberjack cabin years ago, but the woods are thick and deep now. No man has cut down a tree here in several decades. The roof is overgrown with grass, and a dead tree leans against it. Moss has taken refuge around the broken windows, and the tar used to coat the wooden walls has long since flaked off.

We burst through the door as the sun starts to tingle on my skin. It's a warm tingle, annoying. The build up to the fiery pain shouting through you. Inside the cabin, everything is dark and broken. A table, some chairs, and old beds. Two barricade the windows swiftly using the beds and tables, so fast I'm almost impressed, as the rest simple sit down on the floor. Engulfed in darkness.

And then there's the wait for the sun to set.

Time passes differently for us.

Even if we feel every second passing by, we can easily make them pass faster by shutting down. We don't sleep. We don't breathe. We can sit still, as if we were turned to stone, and be. Though, again, even that can become tiresome and boring.

The burly one begins to fidget.

"Stop it," I snap, and open my eyes. He's already to his feet, towering over us all with his six feet-five inc frame. In some ways, he's a lot like Alec - muscles, southern European features, but he's American. I get to my feet. "What is your name?"

"Marcus."

"Well, _Marcus, _stop fidgeting or I'll throw you out."

"I haven't fed in three days! I'm going crazy."

It's typical for a young one, not being able to control himself when he's thirsty. I used to be like that… mere hours without blood running down my throat would turn me frantic in search. But years taught me discipline.

He has neither years nor discipline.

His eyes are crazed, hinting red, and I already know his next move. Stepping left to block the door, I warn him, "The sun is high. Do you really want to risk being left for dead? No one will save you from the sun. And it _will _put you to the ground before you get anywhere."

But he doesn't listen. He charges, and because he's a pain, and young, and needs a lesson, I step to the side. The rest cower in the furthest corner, hiding from the sun which shines through the door as he throws it open. His whine comes out as a gasp. I don't let out a sound, feeling the warm tingle explode into a prickling pain as I stand in the opening. He stops just ten feet from the entrance, turns around for a moment, looking at me bewildered and obviously in pain.

"Go get 'em, tiger," I taunt, and then slam the door shut. His footsteps speed up and then fades away, and I turn to look at the cowards. "Anyone too hungry to wait?"

They all shake their heads, but don't move. Five vampires…scared… hiding in the corner from the big bad sun. It's pathetic. I tell them. They don't talk back. I sit down with my back against the door, and for hours, I sit there and simply look at them. They don't move. They stand, until the warmth of the sun goes away, and the cold night takes over.

We run back.

But five hundred yards from the cabin, north of the cabin, we find Marcus. He lays lifeless on the damp forest floor. "Stop." They come to a halt, and circle their wounded kinsman. I crouch down beside him, and lift up his head. His eyes plead "help me", but where would be the fun in that? I had to learn my lesson the hard way, why shouldn't he?

Besides…the sun won't kill him, and these woods are deserted. The chances of anyone coming by and killing him are slim to none, and animals instinctively shy away from us at all times. Wounded or not.

The days are short, anyways. He'll be able to crawl back to the cabin over time.

"I told you so, didn't I?" I taunt. "I hope you'll learn from your mistake."

I have learned from mine. Being gone, just for a day, has spun my head around. Not hearing Isabella's heart beat, listening to her breath, analyzing her sleep talk, it makes me feel like something is missing. I can only imagine me staying away from her has done to her. Driven her mad? Longing? Even if I've watched her sleep at night, she doesn't know. For a week, she has been isolated from me…

I grimace.

Then I turn to the others. "Go. Feed. Take a day." They don't move. Idiots. They don't understand. "_Go!_"

They run off into different directions, disappearing between the dark tree trunks. Without spearing Marcus a second glance, I take off as well, running as fast as I can to the house. To Isabella. To make her mine.

The snow starts falling when I close in on New York, and I speed up, pushing my legs faster and faster until finally, I reach the house.

But something is wrong.

It's dead silent.

No heartbeat.

I push the front door open, and my worst fear has become reality. Her scent fills the hall. And another human… Heidi? Alec isn't here, either. I run to the attic, and find the door wide open. No marks on it, and it's obvious she hasn't managed to break it up on her own. Then who?

I rage.

"Something wrong?"

I turn, and Alec is standing behind me. "She's gone. _Where is she?_" I demand, and step up to him. My chest touching his, I stare him right in the eyes, and push. He growls, pushing back, and before I can do anything else, he has me up against the wall. It cracks.

"Do not test me, brother. Control yourself."

He releases, I crouch. "Where is she? Who let her out?" But it's obvious. Too obvious. The smell of his little pet is strong. "Did she do this?"

"It's possible," he simply shrugs. "I left her alone for a couple of minutes…a stray passed by. He was… wild. New. I had to take care of him."

That's when I notice his clothes. Splotches of venom has penetrated his shirt, staining it, and I know just what he means by "taking care of him".

"You left her alone? She's human, Alec! Even if she is your pet, her loyalty still lies with her race! Where is she?"

"You think I'll tell you? I'm not that stupid, brother - and you will _not_ go after her. I forgave you once, I won't do it twice."

I straighten up, and ask, "You hold her as high as you did Rosalía?"

Instead of answering, he turns his back on me, and leaves. Without a word, he leaves me in the attic alone, wondering what to do next. The moon hangs high on the sky, barely visible in the city lights.

I already know what to do.

_Isabella. _

Putting Alec's beloved pet on the backburner, leaving the consequences of her actions for later, I take off into the city night, running down alleys and narrow back roads. Buildings become a blur as I speed down the concrete pavements, hugging the walls to avoid the night-wandering humans.

Processing the places she could go, there are only so many places she can hide. The bar she worked at? That reeking man-infested dump is not a home for her. I saw her. When I killed the one she calls "Jasper", I'd found her the same night, and followed her. I have no idea why I waited so many days before doing anything, but I found her intriguing. So I watched her every time the sun went down, followed her as she walked home from that bar, with her head bowed and shoulders hunched.

So that leaves her apartment, and in mere minutes, I stand on the same rooftop I first met here. The scent of her I gone - the wind and the cold snow washed away her essence. I walk to the edge, and look down. The street is empty. A few blocks away a car alarm goes off. Her apartment is on the third floor, and I crouch down, and hold on to the ledge, as I plant my foot on the top of a window sill, and climb down.

At her window, I balance, holding on to the bricks on the wall - trying not to crush them, trying not to crush the sill beneath my feet. Her body writhes, even here. Even in her home, her dreams make her squirm. Peculiar. I inhale deeply, but the window blocks her scent, and I have to hold back a growl. I want her.

Now.

With me.

So I break up the window. It screeches. I watch her. She doesn't move. Instead she starts to mumble a name, but I pay it no mind. Instead I close in on her bed, and watch her… freshly washed hair… smelling of perfume and soap. The white sheets are tangled around her smooth white legs, and she hugs the cover to her chest… her breasts pressed together.

My basic instinct is to rip them off her, and fuck her hard into the mattress, but I manage to restrain myself.

She left me.

At the first sign of freedom from me, she took off… and came here?

That's something I don't understand; why return home when she knows it's the first place I'd look? Her mind boggles mine, and for several minutes, I contemplate letting her be. Leaving her forever. But no, I'm too selfish for that. I can't leave behind what's mine.

Time.

Yes.

All she needs is a little time, to see how the world she lives in is not the place for her. She belongs with the bloodthirsty men and women of eternity. Her fierce soul is build to kill. So I turn around, letting her be for now, and go out the window.

With my foot still on the still, she screams, and I fear she's seen me. Still, I climb up the wall quickly, and stare down from the ledge. Minutes pass, until her feet sound on the floor, and I see her head peek out. She speaks, and if I had a heart, it would break for her.

But as she utters these words "…I don't want to be with you," I say to myself: "_you belong to me,_" and jump off the roof.

With my feet back on the pavement, I start to run, with a strange feeling, wondering why I didn't just take her. Like that first night I saw her through her window, slamming shut the front door and collapsing on her bed in exhaustion, shivering and writhing on the mattress until sleep took her. I watch her, until dawn breaks, absently rubbing at my chest every now and again. I think I'm tired, weary, run down. This human has managed to stir every desire in me I thought long ago squelched, killed and ripped apart like my enemies. She is my enemy. My life. I want something good, and that is the reason I don't take her, and why I return to the house, where Alec waits.

* * *

><p>I'm really sorry about the long wait for this one : I never meant for you to wait three weeks, but this ended up being twice as long as I'd set it out to be. Hope you enjoyed it!

In other news, TEOAB has been nominated in the Sunflower Award under "Best Vampire Story" and "Best Banner" (courtesy of General-of Fanficanon)  
>Voting is available here: http:thesunflowerawards (dot) blogspot (dot) com/2009/07/voting (dot) html  
>until February 19th :)<p> 


	14. To slow down the time

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **14. To slow down the time; veil thy fragile eyes

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N: **Hope no one's getting confused… this picks up in chapter 12. Back to Isabella.

When you see this: **, you should listen to  
>http:  /www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=lzr23yDeSI4  
>and just read slowly, savoring the music.<p>

Do it… just do it. Nike agrees with me.

-.-

On the bus back to Brooklyn, I look at the other patrons occupying the seats. Five people. A couple in the back, making out and smiling adoringly at each other in between kisses. The two of them sit in each other's arms, blonde and shining, lost in love Then there's an old man in the front, staring out the window. I see his reflection in the glass, and his old and wrinkled face reminds me of my grandfather, who passed away when I was six. Though I can't distinguish the emotion in his eyes, I imagine he's feeling lost. For some reason, it seems fitting. Across from me sits a black man, resting his head against the glass, seemingly sleeping.

Block after block, they stay while strangers board on and off, performing as temporary understudies on the stage that is this bus.

All in a hurry.

Why?

It's Christmas Eve.

It's dark now, and I wonder if Edward will come for me tonight. It's obvious he's the one who opened my window and I still wonder why he left me be. I have no hope left, but I don't need it - I know he'll come. I know my days are numbered, but the wait is making me paranoid.

While walking to the train station in Jersey, I constantly looked over my shoulder. Waiting for the bus on Manhattan, every dark-dressed man was an enemy. I feel no safer on this bus. I know no metal can stop him.

The bus stops again, and a business man steps on, struggling with several shopping bags. Bags filled with last-minute presents, covered in red bows and cards.

It makes me think of another life… an alternative universe where vampires don't exist, and my brother never died. Tyler would be what, fourteen? In junior high, awkward and lanky and adorable. My dad once told me us Swans are late bloomers, and I imagine my little brother short and frustrated. Frustrated because of his height not being ideal for a basketball player; his favorite sport. He'd be a bench warmer, but rise in the ranks and become point guard on the varsity team. Our own family baller. Perhaps get scouted for college.

I'd be home for Christmas, maybe with a long-term boyfriend in tow. We'd sit around the table and stuff ourselves with ham and eye the presents under the tree. I'd be a college graduate, fulfilling my dream by working at a fine bakery in Seattle. Or work as a line chef at a restaurant. Either way, working with food, but having enough of discipline not to eat myself back to obesity. I'd be beautiful. Thin. And happy.

Or, I could live here in New York, talking Jasper into leaving his wife. Or better yet, he wouldn't be married _or_ have kids. He'd be all mine. And on Christmas Day I'd wake up in his arms, still glowing from a night of celebrations - because he proposed. We'd get married in the summer, and have kids, and…

None of that will ever be true.

I kick myself for even thinking up those scenarios.

It only makes the pain worse, knowing I'll never see my brother grow up, or experience true love with Jasper - never be his wife, or the mother of his children.

Because, like Tyler, he's dead.

Buried.

Grieved.

Their common point?

Me.

My vision blurs with tears that fall rapidly down my cheeks, and I try my best not to make any sound. My stop is still ten blocks away. But apparently the sound of my balking is let out, because suddenly a woman sits down beside me.

"Are you alright?" she asks, worried. I can't focus on her words; my head is filled with thoughts of a better life, and seeing myself with bloodied hands, tarnishing those Hallmark-scenes. "Isabella?"

My sobbing continues, and minutes pass before I even register my own name being said. But when I look up, no one's there. I must have imagined it. My paranoia is messing with my mind. I straighten up in my seat, and the black man across from me is openly staring.

I blush.

My chest aches with embarrassment.

The bus stops again, and I step off quickly, even though it's not my stop. The chill digs into my body, tremors overtaking me for the millionth time of the day. It's not because of the cold, but everything. I'm overwhelmed. I'm torn down.

There's nothing left.

Buildings are grey and the sky is black. Life is a constant shadow, and there is a moon standing in the way of the sun - keeping me from the light. My skin turns pale, and I turn my back to the moon. Even the moon's light is too bright, too full of hope.

Hope is a lost cause.

The sidewalk become my confidant, as I pour my distress into my steps.

-.-

Depression creeps up on me like the tide. Inch by inch, the briny depths drown me slowly. Salt stains my cheeks, and my eyes turn red. Blood-shoot. My reflection returns to the shell of a woman I was when I first came to this sleepless city. My eyes have no light in them. My expression is flat and emotionless. Three days worth of tears have rendered me grey.

Three days have passed since I went to Jasper's grave, and I haven't moved outside my apartment. At night I keep the bedroom window open, as an act of defeat, but Edward never comes to claim me, and I realize that he never will.

The third morning's light shatters me.

It's Monday.

Four days left until the new millennia begins. And where will I be? Who will I be with? The uncertainty of my future drives me to the bottle, and at eight am, I sit in my bed with a bottle of rum. It burns in my throat, and fills my empty stomach with fluid coals. The night has been wasted away with booze and silence, with me staring at the open window. I'm more or less begging for pneumonia, but I don't care.

Let me get sick.

Let me die in this bed.

Alone, drunk, and shivering.

"Merry Christmas!" I say bitterly. Depressing. I should be with my family, my friends. I should be home and happy. Even the Copes would go to visit their family during Christmas, leaving me a present before they'd go. This Christmas is without gifts. Without cheer. Without celebration. Just me and this bottle of golden liquid.

"Guess ya shoulda just let 'im take ya," I slur aloud.

But the thought only angers me, and I throw the bottle at the wall. It breaks and the glass falls haphazardly to the floor by the door. The rum taints the wooden floor, bleeding into the hungry cracks and crevices. I stare at it, and my head is filled with images of my mother, doing the exact same thing.

_"It should have been you!" she yells, and I cower against the wall, crying. _

_"I'm sorry mom! You have no idea how-"_

_"No idea what? How it feels to have your son ripped away from you? You left him to die, you worthless little girl!" she cries, and the anger on her face morphs into a tell-tale sign of accusation. Her drunkenness is no longer directed at her grief, but at me. "How could you do that, Isabella? How could you…"_

_Shards of glass cut my arm as the bottle hits the wall, and I stand terrified. My own mother threw a bottle at me. _

_There is no forgiveness left. No hope. She truly wishes it had been me who died. _

My mother hates me.

My dad wants nothing to do with me.

The vampire who wanted to claim me has abandoned me.

My lover is dead.

The Copes are dead.

The only ones left are… Sue at the bar, and Jessica.

But are they truly my friends? As far as I know, no one has claimed me missing. No one's been looking for me. No notes on the door, or signs of police intrusion - if so, Stavros would have mentioned it. And I'm alone. So fucking alone.

I let out a scream, agonized and pissed off, and jump out of my bed. Stepping on the glass shards on my way out, I ignore the pain in my feet, and make my way to the kitchen. It's clean now, scrubbed down with lemon and salt, and the smell of mold is gone. It's still disgusting. Opening up the closest cupboard, I grab a plate and throw it at the wall.

The sound exhilarates me.

The shards give me a kick.

I grab another, and another, until all my mismatched, yard-sale plates are broken, and I have to move to the next cupboard of second hand-dishes. I break it all. Glasses, plates, and casseroles that have seen better days. My blood-stained feet leave marks on the floor as I move around the kitchen, tearing it all down.

My stomach clenches.

I drop the vase in my hands, and watch it hit the floor in slow motion, blooming like a mushroom cloud of diamond dust as it cuts up my legs even more. The smell of blood makes me nauseous, and I huddle over the sink wetly heaving. I empty my stomach there, in a torn-down kitchen, with bleeding feet, wearing nothing but my underwear.

I open my eyes, and the sight of my stomach contents makes me feel even worse, and again I buck out whatever is left inside me.

Just a drop.

Rum.

Clear.

I settle on the floor, surrounded by broken dishes.

Like the so many jagged, fetid memories of my life, my apartment is shattered and torn down. Everything bleeds.

And there, huddled into myself, I sit for hours, the pain in my legs only increasing by the minute. When the traffic outside starts to pile up, I know noon has arrived, and I force myself to stand.

Wincing.

I get myself to the bathroom and clean out my wounds, wondering for a split second if Edward would have pounced on me at the smell. Like the one who attacked me did. But I shake my head. The image of him only fuels the tears.

I'm so confused.

I'm actually _missing_ the person - no, the monster - who kidnapped me and kept me captive for over a month. Something in my chest constricts at the thought of his face, and I hate myself for it. It's disgusting. Who can love a vampire?

No one.

No one should.

It's wrong.

But it can't be love.

It's an attraction.

An illusion - a manifested belief that his lust for my blood is actually love for me. But no, he's a dead man walking, and I am nothing but an entertaining meal for him. Or, I used to be. Not even he wants me anymore.

It's a pathetic want.

He's a last resort, but to become immortal is a need inexistent in me. Like I could live forever, knowing I was the reason for so many deaths. And then what, be a murderer like he is? Kill to feed, to survive, with no conscience at all!

No.

It's not love.

It's an attraction.

A mere fascination.

My true love was, and always will be, the fair haired man with the gift of making me feel beautiful.

My Jasper.

With a fresh bottle of rum, I fall back into bed, ignoring the world, and drink myself to sleep in the middle of the day.

-.-

Friday.

The last day of the year.

I shower and eat, finally filling my stomach with something other than cheap booze. The day is clear, but consistently grey. Monotone. As I finally make my way to the streets, it's starting to get dark, and most people are at home having dinner. Some have already started the celebrations. At almost every street corner, mad men are crying over Y2K, and the impending doom. A man in disregarded priest-clothing preaches about redemption, and a few people are gathered around him, their heads bowed in silent prayer. I don't know if it's true, and I have little knowledge about computers, but I don't see the downside. The world ending… seems like a good thing to me. No more suffering, poverty, war… the earth would have a new chance at becoming great, with no human interference.

No more damnation.

Just… nothing.

But as the rest of the pedestrians I ignore them and walk past them without a second glance, and march forward. And forward. Until I reach the den of the hopeless and homeless. My old workplace - Billy's Bar.

Located at the end of the Brooklyn bar district, Billy's is one of many Irish bars dating back to the early 1900s. But it's worn and old, and haven't seen good business since the Depression. Now, the owner Billy - the fourth generation named Bill - runs it on loans. I talked to him once, after finding him in the storage room with a lone bottle of Kilkenny, and he told me that selling would be failure. It would make him a disgrace. So it's up and running, barely.

When I enter, it's as if nothing has changed over the past month. When entering, you're momentarily blinded by the sudden dimness. The ceiling lamps are few, and spread out in the small venue, only highlighting the round tables spread around. Wooden stools by the long bar. Behind, I see Sue working hard, trying to keep up with the once-a-year rush. Christmas is always the hardest - I learned that two years ago. I wasn't expecting it at all, having spent hours almost sleeping at my post the previous days, when a clatter of people started to come by.

The liquor is watered-down.

The beer is cheap.

But every Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, the loneliest and most depressed patrons take their seats.

Every table is full, and the bar is buzzing - albeit low, and morose - so I sneak undetected to a free table in the corner. There, I sit for hours, just staring into the crowd of holey jackets, caps, and raggedy old men. Five o'clock shadows and full grown beards. Flannel shirts and wool gloves. Few women enter, and when they do, they leave quickly on the arm of the best-looking men - and even they break mirrors at the sight of them.

A drink arrives at my table, brought by a girl who looks oddly familiar.

It's me.

The same broken down expression and emotionless eyes.

The same look on her face - like at anytime, someone's going to walk up to her and kill her. Scared. Alone.

But a red-head. Taller.

"From the blonde guy at the bar," she mutters and turns around.

She's my replacement.

Billy sure knows how to pick 'em.

I look up and scout the bar, but no one is blonde. They're all facing down, staring at their drinks. Nursing them.

I feel pathetic and get up to leave. The clock over the bar show's 10:15, but I know that clock is way off. If anything, it's almost midnight, and I refuse to be in this rat hole at the turn of the New Year. I might be all alone, a drunk, and a reject, but this is hell, and I'm not ready to turn myself over to the devil.

So I surrender to the streets, making my way down the old familiar sidewalk. Drunk people pass me on the way, stumbling and giggling. Singing. Kissing. A young couple walks past me, and I smile at their joy. Fresh-faced, in love, and without a care in the world. Their hands intertwined… it's so sweet it makes me want to cry. But I don't.

I put my head down and stick my hands in my pockets. The December wind gives me chills, I speed up.

At midnight, I want to rejoin with my lover - Morgan. The Captain knows how to sooth my sorrows and bring me into the New Year. Except for Jasper, he's the only one who's made me forget about my problems.

"Hey, cutie!"

I find myself on a nearly vacant street, standing at the gap of an alley between two closed restaurants. Lee's Chinese on the right, Funkle's Doughnuts on the left. The street lamp isn't lit, and glass shards lay on the ground around me, crushing beneath my soles.

I step forward. Crunch.

Then I stand still, staring at a blonde haired man.

He smiles wide, staring with green menacing eyes, and images of a yet-to-be crime starring me reflect in them.

I step back. Crunch.

"No where do you think you're going, cutie?" he asks, and steps forward, but a little to the side. It's too dark for me to make him out perfectly, but the smell of decay and despair on him makes me want to wretch. He's young, but older than me at the looks of it - his face slightly wrinkled and filled with traces of nightmares.

I'm scared.

My heart thumps faster.

"I don't have any money," I muster to say, but he only smiles. Yellow teeth. "So just go. I don't have anything for you."

One step closer. Crunch. I step backwards. Crunch. My back hits the brick wall behind me, and the darkness of the alley makes it harder to see.

I never see the blade in his hand.

Not until he's pushing me down, ripping my coat open, and twisting it into my chest.

I scream. The pain is excruciating, and the blood seeps. It stays there, a long blade, trapped inside my chest. My body feels like it's on fire, and I lose all power to protest as he rips up shirt. The blood continues to pour, and my calls for help are muffled by his hand.

In the city behind us, the clock turns twelve and the sound of cheer echoes off the skyscrapers.

But here, no one knows I exist.

No one knows I'm dying.

And no one will ever care.

No one will ever care about the girl lying in an alleyway, bleeding, dying, and with a stranger on top of her, holding her down.

He coos, and the sound of his voice makes me sick. "Sshh, it will be over. Just don't resist."

I feel his hand on my pants, and I close my eyes, waiting for the pain.

But it never comes.

**Instead, his weight is pushed off me, and my faith in God is restored.

For a second.

Until I open my eyes, and find God's reject at my feet, towering over me.

Alec.

"Now what do we have here?"

"Please," I beg. "Let me die."

He grins, and there is a light in his eyes that I've seen before, in the room with the red headed woman.

"When you're as old as me, _Isabella_, you find pleading for death or life amusing. Edward begged too, if I understood him right. He never wanted my life. But that doesn't matter now, does it? I'm God, child. I decide who lives and who dies."

He crouches down, and press his fingers down on my chest next to the knife. I hold back my scream. To what use can it be - no man can kill this creature.

"Little human girl, danced on the ledge, one foot in, the other wedged. Rooted to the floor, it didn't let go – so she's living on the edge, dancing to and fro'. Monsters, predators, evil things were a-lurking. In the mind of blood thirsty men, cruel things were a-churning. He saw a pretty girl, followed her scent – and knew right away, the blood was to him meant."

His evil cackle turns my bones to ice, and I begin to shiver. Blood seeping from my wounds.

_"Help."_

"Ah, but there is no help. Not then, not now," he bows down to whisper in my ear. Why he's being silent, I don't know. "It didn't help you in those woods, and it won't help you in this concrete jungle…"

No, it can't be. No. No. How?

How?

"Yes. It was me. While your blood sings to my brother, your brother's sang to me."

The world ends. Crashing down around me. I pale from the blood loss and his confession. Staring wide-eyed at the Italian predator, I try to muster up something to say, but words fail me. I'm mute. Motionless. Emotionless.

"It was interesting, actually. One might call it fate, to stumble upon you again."

The pain increases, but not because of the knife still wedged in my chest. No, his words hurt more than a thousand knives.

"How? The su-" I start to say, but he cuts me off.

"I was scouting. The sun came too fast and warmed too much, it took me by surprise. Your brother was just playing by the tree line, and I pushed him back into the shadows. His blood was enough to give me the strength to go on - but then you showed up, and I wasn't able to finish. But here you are - and," he muses, tracing a line of blood leading down my chest, "I'll finally see if the sister tastes the same as the brother."

I scream, lightly, but then it fades. With one hand holding my head to the side, I feel his teeth slice through my flesh, cutting it like it's butter. Lapping. I hear him swallowing. Then I don't feel him anymore.

My surroundings cease to exist. At first, I'm aware of the gritty brick walls, the green trash containers lined up against them, and the sound of the city behind us, but then the pain increases, and my vision turns white. There is only wretched pain. Thumping. Running. Setting my body on fire.

Am I screaming? Am I writhing? Am I begging?

I can't feel my own body.

Only the pain.

Shooting through me like needles filled with acid. Knives up my spine. A torch down my throat, settling in my stomach, and spreading to my bones.

Somewhere in the distance I hear my name being called, chanted, and then my body hurts even more, and there is an icy wind scorching my flesh.

Turning to ashes.

My body… decomposing.

I am nothing.

I am only a chasm of pain.

Let it end.

Let it end.

Let my blood line end tonight.


	15. With the wild ones around you

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **15. With the wild ones around you

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N:** This took a little longer than I wanted, but I hope you're all happy with the result!

-.-

_"This is Tyler, Isabella. This is your little brother."_

_I squeal and try to jump onto the hospital bed, but my dad holds me back. "Careful," he says gently, and then helps me up, making sure I don't touch the tube attached to my mom's arm. _

_Her arms. Filled with a small joyous bundle. Wrinkly, with small eyes and a small mouth. Sleeping. My baby brother. I'm someone's big sister! I'm going to protect him from the world, and love him forever. _

…

_"Mom! Mom! Mom!"_

_I stand there and scream for her, but she doesn't hear. She's on the phone, ranting away with someone, I don't know, but she's not paying attention to me. I'm wearing my new dress for Chelsea's birthday party, and I need to find my new shoes. My always knows where they are, but she won't listen. _

_"Mooooom, we need to go! I need my shoes!" I try again, but still, she's more focused on the phone…and my brother. I scowl at him, but he doesn't understand the expression. He's just a baby, but still, he's stealing all the attention. Mom spoon-feeds him something weird-looking from a jar, still talking on the phone, and I'm ignored. _

_I end up being an hour late for Chelsea's party. _

…

_I watch my dad play catch in the backyard with Tyler. I feel envious. _

_The sun is out, and it's the middle of the sweltering summer. I wear three-quarter long pants and long-sleeved shirt, and sweat through the fabric. I pull on the hem of my shirt, wishing my stomach was smaller. Wishing I wasn't ashamed to run around because of how I jiggle. _

_I used to be on the softball team. I dreamt about playing baseball once… a few years ago, when it was me throwing a ball around with dad. _

_Before Tyler came along and stole my thunder. _

_Before dad got the son he always wanted. _

_I'm a girly-girl most of the time, but around dad, I have always tried to be the best tom-boy I can be. Now I don't have to anymore… _

…

_There is a light blinding me, and I shield my eyes with my arm. In the distance I see something. A shadow. It comes closer. A line resembling an arm holds onto another form. A smaller one. Closer. They become a blur, until the light behind weakens, and I'm able to see again. They are more than just shadows. _

_They are more than just ghosts. _

_"You killed me."_

_"You left me to die."_

_"You're the reason I'm dead."_

_"Why did you let him take me?"_

_One blonde, one brunette. One old, one young. _

_I kill in all generations. _

"Go away, go away", _I plead. On my knees. Begging. Their voices are like crows, and I'm a straw man with no backbone. My mouth is stitched shut with black thread, and new shadows join to stand around me in a circle. Pointing. Accusing. _

_"We're dead because of you," they chant, over and over, and in their faces I see the future victims of my teeth. Women, men, children alike. They are in black and white, except for the blood seeping from their necks and the corners of their mouths. _

_"I'm sorry," I whisper through the thread, but the words morph into, "I was hungry". _

_I am on my feet, and they lay dead on the ground. _

_Drained. _

_Blood pours down my body, painting me in red. _

_My throat itches. _

_Their accusing echoes fade. _

_I want more._

-.-

Right before I open my eyes, I sense the world around me. The mattress beneath me, a broken spring trying to poke through my skin. The scent of mold and decay, but there is also something alluring. Something sweet and musky and foreign. Grain and steel. Sunshine and blood.

My body itches. It creeps right beneath my skin, almost bubbling. My throat is on fire, and my stomach feels… desirous, and I know what it wants.

Sounds around me fight for a spot in my ears. Distant sirens, shouting, footsteps, breathing. A creaking floorboard. I hear _everything_.

"I killed my father over and over again. I relived my sins. So tell me, sweet girl, which sins had you screaming so loud?"

I wake, and I rise to my feet in a speed that, for a second, amazes me. The presence of something else - someone else - leaves me feeling threatened, and I find a wall and press against it. The room is pitch black, but I see everything.

Even the man in the doorway.

Jeans and a shirt. Bare feet. A crooked, sick smile.

"Edward."

"It took you long enough… How are you feeling? Hungry?"

Is that the feeling in my stomach? Raw and empty and craving. The fire in my throat has spread to my chest, arms, and legs. I'm on fire. I need to quench this. And that's when I focus on a thumping sound.

Dum, da-dum, dum.

It's a song, and I want to hear more.

"Ah.. so you are. Doesn't surprise me. You've been out for a while. It's a good thing Alec changed you before you lost anymore blood… you could have been a lost cause."

His words go in one ear and out the other. Completely unregistered.

I hear a familiar name, but the thumping sound has filled me completely. Where is it?

Dum, da-dum, dum.

I asses his location… I'll have to go through him to get to the sound. And smell. I sense it now - fresh, warm. Dinner time.

I lick my lips.

Edward smiles. "Bring her up."

A new man appears in the doorway, but I pay him no mind. Instead, I lunge at the girl in his arms. Snapping mouth, grabbing hands, but she's kept from me. Tears down her face. Squirming. I see her blood pulsating fast right beneath her pale flesh. Other details escape me - I'm transfixed on the victual display of flesh and blood, and my sight changes. I see red. I see food.

Edward holds me back, and with all my might, I claw and wretch in his arms, but he's too strong to fight off. I go still, hanging there, but I never take my eyes off the girl.

"Do you know where to sink in your teeth, sweet girl? Don't rush. Savor it. Never jump on your prey - learn to enjoy it," he says, as if I'm a small child being taught how to eat ice cream.

"Let me go!" I shout, and snap my teeth at the quivering girl.

She's faceless.

"Go for the neck," he says, and I'm free.

The girl is not.

The other man pushes her towards me as I swoop forwards. She's on the ground before she knows what hit her. The bones in her arm crack as I hold her down, sitting on top of her. She lets out a scream, high-pitched and pleading, but it's useless energy.

My teeth slice through her skin so easily, and immediately the taste of her blood sooths me. I calm. Although my body is alert, covering my meal from Edward, a feeling of satisfaction washes over me. The fire dies, warm coal lingering behind.

I continue for a while, until I can't get more out of her arteries. I sit up and open my eyes, not realizing I closed them in the first place. I get to my feet and turn around seeing Edward in the same spot I saw him the first time.

The red curtains are closed, except for a sliver which lets the moon shine through. The beam lights him up, and for the first time, I really see how ugly he is. Scars everywhere; on his arms, his neck, even a few in his face. A bump on his nose. His brown hair looks untamed and messy.

Yet… his muscled arms and haggard appearance look appealing.

But I don't let his allure trick me.

I've fallen for it before.

Instead, I focus on the truth. The reality.

"You did this to me!"

I look from the girl to my captor. From the prey to the predator. I see her dead, and while a small part of me wants to feel sorry for her… I don't. Something's wrong with me. And him? I don't feel the same fear I felt before. Although he stands in the doorway, keeping me from the world, he's not a kidnapper anymore. He's an enemy. He's… someone I need to get past.

"This you did on your own - bravo," he faux congratulates me, clapping his hands twice before gesturing to the dead girl at my feet. "I didn't do that. That was you. I didn't even have to show you, you drained her without spilling a single drop."

He's right, but I refuse to admit that to myself just now. Instead, I fall into a sea of hatred, and he is the harbor I storm up to crush. "You're the reason I'm like this is the first place! Why did you change me?" I scream, and then lounge at him. Again, he's already predicted my move, and manages to turn me to face the wall. My arms are held to my back, and had I been human, they would have broken under his strength. Instead, I only feel a prickling pain.

"I _didn't_," he growls into my ear.

"Liar."

"Don't you remember anything? Most do…" he says low, and not threatening at all. Something in him has changed - or is it me? "What had you screaming so loud, sweet girl?"

His words triggers something, and time stands still. My mind finally catches up to my instincts, and while repressing the urge to get out of his grip, I finally have the chance to think. And remember.

_The dark alley. Stranger. Stabbing pain. Pulling on clothes. The smell of blood. _

_Alec. _

_Threats and revelations. _

_Endless pain. _

I go limp in Edward's hold, and he lets go. I don't turn around. Although I hate this man more than my life, he wasn't the one who put me in this state. The girl on the floor is dead because of me - and Alec.

Then again, Edward is the one who brought me into this world.

Or was it Alec, when he killed my brother?

I feel the anger boil up inside me.

"What had me screaming?" I answer with a question, low, but I don't hold back my resentment. Staring at the wall, I stay perfectly still, and say the words I've held to myself for months. "I'm the reason my little brother is dead. Because of me, the man I loved died - in your hands. I relived my mistakes, I did it all over again, and I did it without remorse."

I turn around.

Edward is a stone figure, and while I scream, it's as if it all rolls off him.

"And to add to that, I _understand. _Now I finally know why, and I can't hate you for killing him. I hate _me _for it. I shouldn't be alive!"

Something snaps then. In him, something goes off, and now he's the one raging.

"You still want to die? Do you? You want to end all of this? Fine. There is the door - run until you find the sun and never come back, if that is what you truly want. Find the sun, stand it in for years until you deteriorate. If you'd rather die than be here, alive, with me, then go." He says it all without shouting, and yet I feel as if I've been scolded with a megaphone. His voice, as always, is low and hard, carrying hints of disgust and malice.

I do nothing.

I stand still.

I look at the door once, for a few seconds, and think. My human self would have jumped on the chance to end her life. The rooftop. The window. She tried to kill herself like it was a sport she tried to master, but never did.

Isabella Swan would have slit her wrists and bled through the portrait of her beauty.

I do not.

The itch in my throat, the yearning to sate the hunger in my stomach, it keeps me back. I crave to chase down the ecstatic feeling of blood in my throat, the warmth of a human's essence as it fills me.

I accept what I am, and I am everything I hate.

And Edward, being older and wiser, he sees it on my face, and smiles.

And stalks.

Towards me.

Instinctively, I step back, but my back hits the wall. One part of me wants to break through it and escape him - go live forever, but alone. But the other part, the one that connects to my flesh and bones, the yearning that battles against my lust for blood… it lusts for him.

Just lust.

A desire to have him fill me, to see if it's as good as the taste of blood.

There is no love.

He's the reason I'm like this. His kind - my kind - doesn't deserve to live, nevertheless love, but there is nothing I can do to change that.

I accept it.

I run with it.

And I take his mouth as it clashes with mine, full of lips and tongue and fury.

I begin where he ends, and I push and pull when he takes and grabs.

The wall cracks as he slams me against it, but there is no pain. There is hatred. Anguish. Passion. There is something that I've never felt before, and it's a dark and strong emotion that drives me crazy. I rip his clothes off, and he rips off the remainder of mine - still torn and filthy from the night of my change.

His mouth covers mine, and then it moves to my neck. Down my chest. Covering my breasts - followed by his hands and low moans. Naked on the floor, rolling, tugging, pushing.

My hands follow his, as they roam down my body and down his. He is as hard and strong as he looks; a chiseled statue. Not divine, just stone, but it's a rigid figure which hits me in the right places.

"Full of fire," he says as I claw and rage on top of him. I slide down, he thrusts up. I moan to his grunts. His hands fall from my chest to my ass, and then the passion goes from good to euphoric.

Hours.

Minutes.

Seconds.

Time is nothing.

"You're mine now," he growls into my ear, and rolls us around, fucking me into the floor.

"Never," I bite back, and latch onto his throat - I don't cut him, I only bite. It drives him on. He goes deeper, and I become louder.

It's never-ending.

I explode and scream, writhing beneath him. His eyes are… red. Blood red. Not green. I stare into them as a sensation of fulfillment shoots through me, matching the euphoria of blood. He stares back, and there is something…

Something different.

Not malice.

Not hatred.

Nor is it the usual disdain.

_Blonde curls. _

_A white smile. _

_His sweet kisses on my neck. _

_His love through his caresses. _

I see the face of my savior: my Jasper. I feel him on top of me, all around me, and it drives me on.

Harder.

Deeper.

But when he comes, there is no Jasper. There is only red eyes and dark hair. A face of scars and resentment. His expression is wrong. Too wrong. Jasper would have… kissed and whispered and cared. Edward takes and goes. His teeth tear into my neck, demanding a toll, and there _is_ pain.

I scream.

I try to fight him off, but he's too strong.

Pain becomes pleasure, feeling his tongue on the gash - venom swimming around. It feels like an adrenaline kick and my screams morph into moans once again.

He stills.

Looks at me, once - his eyes returning to green.

That fucking crooked smile.

I've been fucked by Satan.

-.-

Somehow, I can feel the sun outside. The room is warmer. Denser. Like someone is holding onto my throat; not squeezing and choking, but uncomfortable. I sit down on a sofa covered with a white sheet and look around. The house must have been of importance at one point in time. The furniture is old and fragile, but seems to have cost a lot. Fancy tables, strange couches, even an ottoman. The grandfather clock doesn't work, and the arms have stopped at 3:57.

My legs are paler than I remember. I stretch them out in front of me, not caring that the shirt I'm wearing doesn't cover me. There is only Edward.

And this is _his_ shirt.

The blue button-up from the first time I met him. The underwear is mine - though I'm not sure I even need them, I put them on me out of habit.

I wonder which other habits I still possess.

Or am I gone?

Edward stands motionless like always. Shirtless. His pants a little ripped apart, but hanging on. I have blood smeared on my shirt, but I hardly notice it. Instead, I try to ignore the carcass on the floor.

Another dead girl.

Sex made me hungry.

Edward looks from her to me, and then picks her up. Without saying anything, he walks out the room, and I hear him opening doors; then footsteps down stairs. A thud. Then he returns.

"You eat with better manners than most," he says, and I don't know if it's a compliment or not.

Silence follows. The air is awkward and I don't know what to do with myself.

I hate this man.

I hate him with every fiber of my being.

But where can I go if I decide to leave? He'll track me down. Becoming a vampire hasn't changed anything - I'm still his possession. I'm still his plaything. I'm still lost if I leave him. The only thing I can think of that makes me _want _to stay, is the chance to wring Alec's neck. And when he gets here, that is exactly what I'll do.

He killed my brother.

He changed me.

Now it's time to become _his_ maker; _his_ undertaker.

But in the mean-time, I need answers.

"Why did you bite me?" I ask, leaving insecurities and hesitance behind.

"It's the way I wanted to change you… but I never got the chance. I was tracking you down when I found you, but it was too late. Alec had already changed you. Already saved you." He snorts, as if he's thinking of something funny. "You're like a birthday-present. The gift that keeps giving…" he laughs, and I want to punch him.

"How you wanted to change me? Like what, fuck me and drain me? You're disgusting," I spit, and move off the couch. "I'm not yours to have."

"Oh but you are! You've chosen to stay yourself, so now, I own you. The alternative is Alec. He's your changer, and mine - he owns us both. Although we can run, he'll always catch up. But Isabella," he says and steps closer to me. He takes me in his arms as if he cares for me and I care for him. I'm locked in his fake embrace of love. "Don't run. Even if you don't see it now, we are meant to be together."

The thought makes me grimace.

To be owned.

But he's right. Edward _is_ the lesser of two evils.

He presses me into his chest, and it's the strangest hug I've ever had. The action even seems to throw _him_ off, and his arms fall away from my back. Backing up, I see he is as lost as I am. Maybe he has realized that I am nothing more to him than a fleeting infatuation. But I cling onto that little bond we have. Staying here brings me closer to a new goal.

A new mission.

If I cannot kill myself, then I will kill my maker.

And as if on cue, a new presence makes itself known. A new smell; sea-salt and pasta. Sand and armor.

The venom in me stirs, and the itch for blood is set aside for a need of revenge.

To avenge my brother and my lover.

To avenge my life.

To end…everything.

* * *

><p>As a "warning" to you all… the next chapter will most likely be the last. *bites nails*<p> 


	16. We are not magnificent

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **16. We are not magnificent

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N: **First, I'm sorry for the delay. I'm participating in a month long celebration which is taking its toll on me.  
>Second... I might have lied a teensy bit. There will be one more chapter. That all right? ;-)<p>

-.-

Before Alec has even stepped through the door, I have thought up a hundred different ways to kill him. Most revolve around ambushing him, but… that is the way to most likely fail. If Edward can predict my moves, then Alec will know them before I've even thought them myself.

But there is the sun.

The warmth through the door.

Alec joins us from the land of the living, and the sun must have made him weaker. There are no trees to protect him here. No shadows to slow down the time. No young boys to slake his thirst before he can move back into the darkness.

Here there are only children. And the daughter has spite on her mind.

The door slams open. Alec steps through the light. Hah! He walks through the light like a savior, but the Devil was once an angel himself. I am not fooled for a second.

"Sire," Edward says, shielding me behind him. I haven't a clue as to why, but then I recall that I'm wearing next to nothing, and Alec himself has once…_desired_ to be with me. Or was that all an act in front of Edward? "Alec, why were you out in the sun?"

_Attack! _

_Attack! _

But something holds me back, and it's the worry in Edward's voice. It makes me wonder. It baffles me. How can he care for this man? How can he possibly worry whether he lives or dies? Instead of ending Edward's life when it should have ended, Alec turned it into a never-ending hell. Why the love? Because it is - love. Edward may not have a heart, and he may be going to hell, but his voice and his eyes are filled with an emotion stronger than just loyalty.

Love.

Hah!

But how? How can he love Alec? When all Alec has done is rip off his limbs and tortured him? Put him aside as second when a woman came along.

It doesn't make sense.

But it's clear to me that Edward will fight me off to protect his changer.

My changer.

_Our_ Sire.

"Heidi."

It's just a name, but as Edward straightens up, you'd think Alec had told him an hour-long story.

"Did you…?"

"No. It seems my newest changeling has made quite an expression on my pet. Tut, tut," he says with his eyes pointed at me, as he slides down the door. Once on he reaches the floor, he looks more like a peasant than a soldier.

_Attack!_

_Attack!_

_God damn it, rip his head off!_

My body tenses, and Edward feels it. His stance becomes more prominent, and now he's done shielding me.

Now he's protecting our maker.

"Isabella here has made scenes all over the city. Heidi witnessed one. She knows."

Knows what? Who is this woman he speaks of?

The anger inside me boils. This is the time to strike, but I know I'll lose if I do. I can't die before Alec burns.

So I retreat. It feels like a humongous defeat, but it's one I have to have in order to win this war. As I relax my muscles, Edward lets down his arms and goes to help Alec, who waves him off when he comes near. I move back against the wall and watch them. Seeing Alec fragile is foreign and strange, but even stranger is seeing Edward behaving like a battered son, trying to help his drunken father.

It's like watching me and my mother.

"No, no… I don't need your help. Do we have anything fresh?"

"There's a man in the basement. He came knocking… Roman Catholic."

"A Roman?" Alec asks, and gets to his feet. "I suppose I'll deal with this man then. Any word from our visitors?"

"None. I told them to scatter while Isabella changed. Diego left before sunrise."

With a quick glance to me, Alec grins viciously, and disappears behind a door, and I hear his footsteps down the stairs. A door opens, I hear a heartbeat, then it closes…and I hear nothing.

I've lost my chance.

-.-

Edward doesn't let me leave the house. For days, he keeps me cooped up, bringing me young women to feed off on. When I ask him why he only brings me women, he says it's because they are the easiest to lure away from the crowds. They see him, and they imagine going home with him. Men, unless gay, won't go near him. It's understandable, but the conversation makes me go over future plans. Future settings. I close my eyes and see myself tricking and plotting, making men follow me to dark and secluded places, where I rip apart their bodies and quench my thirst.

I imagine many scenarios, all of them different, but never once am I to put them into action.

We fight.

I make a break for the door, but Edward stops me. I use up all my strength on fighting him off, and he forces me down into the cellar, and locks me into a room of steel. Days pass. I become weaker. The itch in my throat is unbearable, and when I imagine weeks have passed, the door opens.

"Behave," Edward says, and throws an unconscious man into the room. His throat is mine, and his blood fills my stomach. I don't play with my food. Instead, I latch onto his throat and suck him dry, never spilling a drop. When I'm done, I sit down and look at his face.

It's strong, angular, and defined. This man, with his dark skin and attractive features, must have been a lady's man. Now he's a dead man. A dead _married_ man. I take the gold ring from his finger, and on the inside are the words: forever and a day.

Cute, but this man didn't understand the concept of forever.

Forever is my existence.

Forever and a day is my future.

I tear apart his body, limb for limb, my body on fire with rage. "Let me out," I yell at the steel wall, but I hear nothing outside it. No footsteps. No movement. Nothing. But he may be there, silent, listening (if that is possible). "You son of a bitch, let me out of here! I need to move, I need to feed, I need to see the stars!"

No answer.

Time passes.

The power from the blood leaves my body faster than a sugar rush passes for humans, and I go limp on the floor. Cowering in a corner. I sit and moan there, occasionally calling out when I think I hear something.

A vampire going mad.

My human self was never this desperate.

Then again, she was already cut off from the world. Isabella Swan _wanted_ to disappear. She _wanted_ to escape. This me…this me longs for freedom. I crave the opportunity to stretch my legs and run, drink, fuck, and paint the world in blood red.

But my legs are tired.

I can't stand.

Time passes slowly, torturing me, and when I think I might pass out, the fire in my throat intensifies. It really does feel like I'm dying, slowly, but I keep living. It's the greatest torture: being cut off from the world.

I start counting seconds.

One, two three, four…

One thousand and forty-seven, one thousand and forty-eight, one thousand and forty-nine…

Five hundred-thousand and nineteen, five hundred-thousand and twenty, five hundred thousand and twenty-one…

I reach two million when the door opens.

Yet, to my disappointment, it's not the person who will let me out.

"Edward is being soft, in my opinion. Or maybe too hard? When I tore him apart, it was because he killed sloppily. He keeps you here because he's afraid."

"Afraid?" I manage to say, but my entire body fights the movement of my mouth.

"Of losing you, of course," he says. Alec closes the door behind him, but the lack of sound in the house (for the few seconds I was able to hear) is disturbing. Alone with this man? I'd rather stand face to face with the Devil and say he's weak. "An irrational feeling, in my opinion. Tracking you down is easier than killing a child."

He chuckles, and I try my hardest to stand.

I fail.

"Speaking of child… I see you've pivoted back to juvenile behavior. Trying to run away? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; you screamed more than Edward did when I changed him. Then again, he was stronger than you. You're weak. You're nothing. "

"When he finds out…" I muster, but then my head falls back against the wall. Alec crouches down in front of me, holding my head in his hand. In his eyes, I see no soul.

"Me? I saved you from death. I came across you dying, and I gave you life - a life with Edward. The life _he_ wants. Who do you think he'll believe? Me, the one who gave him life and took care of him for centuries; or you, the one who ran away and called him a monster? Think it through, child. His love for me is greater than his attraction to you - so you'll do better to keep your mouth shut."

I stare back at him, trying to find any sort of strength within myself, but I come up empty-handed. Without blood, there is no adrenaline. What remains is the fire inside, and I hope he can see it.

I loathe him.

I want to kill him a thousand times.

I want to watch as he burns.

"It's a deal," I say, and he leaves without another word.

His visit has been brief, but it's amazing how much you can learn from short encounters. I don't have the power to move, but I can still think. I can still plot. I'll get back at him - even though now, killing him - after what he just told me - appears to be something I won't be able to pull off.

Maybe if I have a gang of old vampires to back me up.

Maybe in a few hundred years when I'm stronger.

In the meantime, all I can do is make him suffer…I just have to find a way to do that.

Through Edward?

No. If I turn to act like I love him now, he'll know I'm lying. Maybe over time…and then kill Edward? Or take him away - leave Alec forever.

I leave that thought - if Alec wants to, he'll track us both down with ease.

I need to find a way.

To hurt him like he's hurt me.

-.-

My little brother.

Mommy's favorite child. Dad's golden son.

With my eyes closed, I see him pointing his finger at the woods as I drive away. Pointing at Alec, whose shirt is drenched with blood. I realize that it's not real, that my brother is dead and gone, but it feels real. I'm awake, but I still see him. I reach out my hand to touch his face, but he's smoke. When I try again, it ruins the image.

In my head, I go over conversations with Jasper. Intimate moments. Memories where I was the moon on his black sky. His everything. Then the sky is cut in half, and it bleeds.

"Do you understand now, Isabella? You belong to me. If you run, I'll hunt you down. If you step out of line, I'll rip your legs from your body and starve you. "

Dum, da-dum, dum.

"Are you going to run?"

Dum, da-dum, dum.

"No."

"Will you behave?"

Dum, da-dum, dum.

"Yes."

"Good girl."

A slender, pale throat. Blood pulsating beneath tender flesh. My teeth cut through skin and nerves. Warmth shoots through my body. I sink my teeth deeper in. Edward holds my dinner down, and I don't let a single drop go to waste.

After a minute, when all is gone, I open my eyes and see Edward's looking right back at me.

Looking starved.

Craving.

The dead body is tossed to the side, and my body is slammed against the wall. His tongue clashes with mine. My hips thrust against his. The sound of ripped fabric is drowned out by our moans, and against the wall, we fuck like animals.

Hard.

Deep.

Bouncing.

I claw onto his back, and his hands hold onto my ass like it's the last ass he'll ever feel. I feel my insides turning and crushing as he slams me against the steel wall over and over again. I'm still weak, my bones are fragile, but the pleasure is stronger than the pain. With his left hand cupping my cheeks, the right one creeps up my side and then down, his thumb working me to the edge.

_Jasper. _

_Blonde. _

_Whispering into my ear. _

_"I love you."_

When I come, I bite down on his neck.

When he comes, he bites on me - my skin breaks and venom pours until it heals itself.

We stay like that, holding onto each other against the wall - a dead woman in the corner.

I'm exhausted.

When he lets me down, I sink down against the wall.

He leaves, but let's the door stay open.

Upstairs, I hear the sound of five other vampires. Talking. Laughing. Minutes tick by, but I don't move. I'm tired and worn. Naked. The dead woman in the corner stares at me - grey eyes with no light.

The corner of my mouth turns up into a small smile.

"Are you coming?"

I get to my feet and walk up the stairs to Edward, where he holds out a pair of old jeans and a black top. Neither fits me very well; the pants are a size too large and the top clings to my skin, but it'll do. He's a seven hundred year old vampire, not a personal shopper. That he has managed to find something close to my size is remarkable.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Are you ready?"

"For what?" I ask him as we enter the living room. Three male vampires sit on the sheet-covered sofas and chairs, looking at me. Hungry. Licking their lips.

"Diego, there are three Mexicans causing a slight havoc down in Bronx. Take care of it."

Diego, whom I recognize as the one who brought my first meal, nods. "And Alec, sir?" he asks.

"I believe he'll want all of you gone for the night."

With that, Edward leads me to the door. There's a cool draft, but instead of snow, the ground is bare. The grass is green. It's summer. "For how long was I down there?"

"A few months," he says, with an amused glint in his eyes.

"How many are a few?" I press on. The door shuts behind me, and it's just us and the night. As always, the street is vacant, but I can still hear the sound of the city. I still see the lights.

"About seven." It's July. For some reason, I don't find that strange. If eternity is waiting for me, then seven months are like seven grains of sand in a desert. Meaningless.

We set off to run, passing houses and roads. Edward keeps me close - is he afraid I'll run? - and sometimes pushes my side when he wants us to take a new direction. He can easily outrun me, but he doesn't. I keep in my mind what Alec said, how Edward is afraid he'll lose me, and don't waver from our path. Hours pass, and the night becomes darker.

In a small clearing, not far from a small town, we slow down and walk. I hear the sound of snoring and heavy breathing; a child screaming and then a woman's light cussing as a door opens; three young mortals giggling; bottles clinking together as someone drags their feet after them.

"You wanted to choose your own meals? Now you have the chance. Go in, don't let them scream, and bring them back here. Prove that you can hunt on your own. Prove yourself."

"And if they scream?"

"I've told you before that there is no one to govern our moves. If you slip up and people become suspicious of the murder, you'll have to answer to the man who holds house here."

"Holds house? Where are we?"

"We're on the coast of Canada, not far from Alaska. Alec knows the man stays in this area… it's like what Alec does; he's the master of the house in New York, and lets vampires stay if they feel the need. If they're lonely. If they're new."

"Who holds house here?"

"I don't know his name; it's not my business. Alec is the one who interested in this. I don't need a house. I don't want anyone else around me… but you," he says with a stern expression, but he doesn't frighten me. I'm not submissive to him. But I am connected to him. We're cursed by the same man, bound for immortality together. All I have is him.

The lesser of two evils.

He steps closer and takes my hand in his, looking into my eyes. "Do well."

I take off. The wind rushes past me, but I know I'm not going very fast. I'm weak. Very weak. I slow down to a walk as I near a house. The lights are on in the living room, and I hear a strong heartbeat. Only one. Going over ways to do this, I come up with something…fun.

I knock on the front door. Once, twice, thrice.

The door opens, a sleepy man stands in the doorway. At first, he doesn't say anything, but rubs his eyes. He's young, my age, with shoulder-length black hair and a pale complexion. Then he looks at me, and his mouth drops.

"My car broke down. Can you help me?" I say, but as I talk, he doesn't seem to register my words. "My car. Can you help me?"

He snaps out from his trance and steps closer, grabbing his jacket, then closes the door behind him. "Sure."

"You're so kind," I whisper, and take his face in my hands. He stands still, motionless, watching my face with lust in his eyes. "And so… mouth-watering." I move in to kiss him, and as my lips touch his, he closes his eyes. I move my hands to his neck, and press. He doesn't notice at first, but then he tries to push me away, only managing to nudge me a little. His arms grow weaker as I press harder, then I move back to look at his face as it turns blue.

Blood gathers in his throat, and it's all too much to resist.

I push him inside and slam the door shut before I latch onto his arties.

Five minutes later, I find Edward standing in the same spot as I left him, and drop my dead meal onto the ground. He tells me to bury it, and as soon as the grave is topped, I'm pushed to my knees, on all fours. He takes me from behind, six feet above my dinner.

"Edward."

"That's it, say my name," he growls as pushes harder into me, fucking me into the ground. Pulling my hair. Holding my throat. Leaning over me to bite my shoulder.

_Nibbling on my ear. _

_"Say my name, baby. Let me hear you."_

"Jasper!"

As he comes, I feel his venom pouring over. Dripping. Searing.

My front is covered in muck and earth when I stand up, minutes later. Edward doesn't smile. His face isn't painted with post-coital ecstasy. Instead, his eyes remain red. Full of fury. Pissed off.

"What?" I ask as I pull the top on, trying to cover myself as best as possible.

A few seconds pass before he answers, and when he does, it's with a malicious tone and a sharp tongue. "When my wife disobeyed me, I'd take her out in the barn and smack her until she understood me. When words don't work, Isabella, fists do. I let you out today because I thought you understood. You're _mine. _Alec changed you because _I_ wanted him to. You live because of _me_. I can end you as easily as I can make you. _Jasper_ is the past. Your human life is gone. You don't exist anymore. Name him again - any of them; your parents, siblings, friends - and I'll make you suffer for a hundred years."

I would have cried. I would have burst into tears and eaten a tub of ice cream. Drank myself to death.

Isabella Swan would have spiraled into depression.

But me…I'm filled with fury. White rage.

How dare he threaten me? How dare he speak to me like he owns me?

I want to make him suffer too. He's my way out of this life, and he's my way to Alec. So I bite my anger back and smile timidly, nodding.

"The sun is coming out in a few hours."

"Why can't we stay here?" I ask.

"Alec told me the one who stays here doesn't like over-day guests."

We start running again, but this time, Edward stays ahead of me. I see his anger in every step, but he can't see my fury. I restrain myself; the want to hurt him is so strong, it battles my hatred towards Alec.

Alec.

Sire.

The greatest sadness is for a parent to survive their children. My parents have survived both. To avenge my death, and my brother's, I will slay the man who ruined my family. To do that, I will ruin his.

But how? The sun hides behind the sky-scrapers further south when we approach the house, and I'm exhausted. Edward, who's been ahead of me for miles, is already there when I creep closer. Slower. My skin is warm and my throat is on fire.

Then I see blonde hair and a dark silhouette. A long skirt fluttering in the soft breeze.

Dum, da-dum, dum.

Her heartbeat,

Her scent.

Her _scent._

It sets off a trigger, and as I now jog towards the house, I see the face of an angel. The body of a human traitor. The flesh of a pet.

She's headed towards the house as well, and I know who she is.

I know my revenge.

To get to Alec. To hurt him, I have to hurt the ones closest to him, and who's closer than the whore who rides him?

The blonde from the train. The blonde from the attic-window view. The blonde on the bus.

The dead blonde on the street.

_"Heidi," _I say just loud enough for her to look up. A deer caught in headlights.

Dum, da-dum, dum.

Then for her… only screams.

-.-


	17. Harness your blame and walk through, pt1

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **17. Harness your blame and walk through, pt1

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N: **I'd like to apologize for the horribly long wait. So much came up and I got unfocused  
>and just plain unmotivated to write most of the time.<br>BUT, that has changed, and I'm now proud to present the last installment in this story.  
>This chapter is split into three parts, and the epilogue itself will be posted separately.<br>I hope you enjoy.

-.-

**Part I  
><em>Isabella <em>**

Her eyes are green. It's the one of the first things I notice when I get closer to her. Green like Edward's, just a shade lighter. Her skin is tan, like that of someone who spends their every waking hour in the sun. She smells of grass and sand mixed together, like a plane by the beach.

Her eyes are filled first with surprise and terror, but once I forcibly push her down onto the pavement, she doesn't resist. Right there on the street - though vacant and silent - I go against everything Edward has told me about stealth. With one glance towards the four storey tall building - my eyes shifting quickly over the top window with red curtains, and the large wooden door - I look down.

She quivers, her eyes staring up at me, and I grin. "Eye for an eye," I growl and attack her throat. To hell with wanting to savor the blood and the sensation. To hell with protecting my dinner. To hell with the world - I have found my vengeance.

"Isabella, no!"

Red splashes against grey, and Heidi gives away screams so full of pain that it feels like Christmas. Let him hear. Scream louder. Let Alec listen to someone he loves die, just like I saw my brother's screams in his eyes as I held him in the forest.

Before I can tear into her more, my body is flung several yards back. My head makes a dent on the road, but it doesn't hurt. I get to my feet under a second, and the scene before me is the strangest I've ever seen. Edward struggles with Alec. Their mouths snap at each other's necks as they roll around on the floor. Heidi coughs and moans on the sidewalk, and I don't know what to do.

Go for her?

Wait for Alec to kill me?

Before I can do anything, a stream of light lets past the building tops, and hits me in the eyes. It burns.

Blinded, I never see my Sire bulldozing into me. His entire body covers mine. All I see is his evil face, red eyes, and bared white teeth before I'm consumed by pain.

I can't feel my limbs.

I can't see.

I can't do anything but focus on the pain that seems to never end.

And it goes on, intensifying by the second, but I can't scream.

Finally, I'm in hell.


	18. Harness your blame and walk through, pt2

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **17. Harness your blame and walk through, pt2.

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N: **Obviously, this is part 2, and also the last you will read from Edward's point of view.  
>I hope he hasn't lost his touch.<p>

Part 3 and the epilogue are coming to theaters near you over the weekend.

-.-

**Part II  
><em>Edward<em>**

I can feel the sun on my back, but I don't let myself focus on the need to buckle my knees and crawl away. There's too much to take in at once. Too much to process. Alec's pet lies bleeding on the ground, and even though I'm old enough to not jump on her, I still have to fight off the urge to take her body and suck it dry.

Then there's the anger boiling inside me. The adrenaline pushing my venom fast through my body, wanting me to wring Alec's neck. When I returned no more than ten minutes ago, I knew Isabella wouldn't abandon her rebellion. I knew she wouldn't be quiet. But never did I imagine she would do this. It was Alec who noticed first, and ran past me, broke through the door, and threw Isabella away.

The house had been empty except for him. He must have thought we'd be gone longer, and invited the pet over…

Isabella gives out a sound of joy mixed in with the tearing of skin. Her venom spurts like blood, and her black flesh burns beneath the sun's rays. Pushing away the lust for blood and urge to kill, I rush over to Alec. Her head hangs by the hair in his hand, and her body twitches on the ground. One breast is almost falling out in the tight top, and her pants hang halfway down her ass from the struggle.

I growl at Alec, but his face is emotionless. Without saying anything to me, he turns towards the sun, throws the pet over his shoulder, and walks up to the house. I follow, carrying Isabella's twitching body in my arms. Her flesh continues to sizzle in the sun, but once I'm inside, there's only the lingering smell of burnt meat.

"It's out of love I've speared her, Edward," Alec says. In the middle of the living room, he has pulled off the white sheets and lain her down on a sofa. The pet squirms and moans painfully, and I remember my own burn… The feeling of being tortured in a thousand different ways at the same time. As though Hel, the goddess of the underworld, had taken me into her grasp and squeezed until I was nothing. I had thought I was being punished by the gods, but how wrong I was.

There are no gods.

I look at her with pity, but my own love is more important than Alec's pastime.

"Out of love! It was out of love I tore off Rosalía's head when she fucked every man and vampire she came across. Isabella is a _child_; her actions are based on a need to feed. Besides, it's not like she tried to dry out the entire city. I did far worse before you started to tear off limbs. One little human is nothing compared to what I did."

He says nothing, but directs his attention to the pet. The likes of her are a rarity. Most people fear us, avoid us, or try to forget the truth. Few seek us out. Even less are permanent fixtures. This one though, this one was adamant. Alec found her a year and a half ago, brought her here to snack... but then she said she knew. Told him she wanted to be like us.

He strokes her cheek and holds her steady as a strong wave of pain rides her. The changing process is long and painful, even more so in the beginning, as wounds and cuts are filled with venom, trying to heal them. Your insides are slowly being turned to black matter, replacing organs, making bones hard as stone. Watching Isabella turn was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Watching the pet, though not as painful, is still difficult.

But the way Alec cares for her now is… new. This affection is alien to my eyes. With Rosalía, Alec had been nothing but brutal and passionate. I never saw him treat her with tenderness, nor did I ever see him stroke her cheek. The pet gets affection, while my _mate_ gets the punishment. Her head lays on the floor next to him, and while I want to pick it up, Isabella's headless body twitches too much.

It's the pain.

When Alec tore off my head six hundred years ago - and the rest of my limbs, for that matter - it had been torture. The constant pain. Not being able to move, scream… unbearable. But like torture, you're not in the power to end the pain. Even after, your body takes months to recover. Years to build up your previous strength.

Isabella…will never be the same.

But in the meantime, she can at least be safe.

I take her up to the attic and place her on the ragged mattress. It's déjà vu. I've done this twice in the past; once, when I brought her into my world. The second time, when she was reborn into my world. Both times she was broken and in pain.

The summer sun is strong and the curtains stand ablaze.

I don't like it.

Heat has never been my thing, not even in my human years. Cold and wet, that is what I love. Falling snow and freezing winds. I was a costal boy bred on icy fjords, taught how to break it and live off of it. The heat - though it doesn't affect my body - is still foreign to me.

I step back and get back downstairs, but Isabella's head is nowhere to be seen. Only the pet is on the sofa, moaning and breathing hard. The blood loss must have been big, because the neck wound is still open. Her clothes are evidence of that- bloodstained and torn apart.

"Alec? Where is her head?" I call out, but there is no answer. Nor do I really need one. I can hear him, feel him. I hear the floorboards creak, and the sight that meets me in the kitchen is one that makes me growl. Alec holds Isabella's head by the hair, her mouth open in a macabre 'o'.

Humans would never have seen it, because in a split second, I pounce at my changer and he spins me around to hold me by the throat up against the wall. All the while, Isabella's head is still hanging from the other hand.

I squirm and kick against him, trying to pry his hands off my throat, but his grip is too tight. His strength is far greater than mine, from centuries of practice and experience. He knows how to portion it - more so than I.

Then in one swift move, he shoves me up a little bit, grabs my arm and hurls me across the room. The arm tears, but only a little, leaving it to barely hang on by thin skin. The pain takes my focus off Alec and for minute, my eyes are trained on the wound on my shoulder. The scars are too many to count from years and years of punishment and reprimands from Alec. My venom sears as it works, connecting the flesh and bones until it's whole again.

When I look up, finally able to sense my surroundings, Alec is still there with the head of my mate, but now, he holds a lighter. I don't move an inch.

Venom catches fire easier than any human-made liquid.

My eyes go from Isabella's head, to Alec's eyes. Back and forth.

"You wouldn't dare."

"No? You had no hesitation when you killed Rosalía. Why should I?"

"Rosalía was a whore. Isabella is my _mate. _Why are you doing this?"

"She wanted revenge. She deliberately went after Heidi to hurt me."

I look at him bewildered. Not once has he referred to his pet by her name, except for when he brought her here years ago. He wanted a snack; she told him she knew what he was. Fascinated and intrigued by her, Alec kept her as a plaything.

"How would killing the human hurt you?"

"How would it hurt you if I killed Isabella?"

Had I been human, I would have stuttered, but the pieces fall into place.

"You trusther. That's why you suggested she'd be the one to buy food for Isabella. I thought she was just entertainment."

"It seems we are more alike than I thought," Alec says, but his tone contradicts his words. Instead of smiling, as if he was amused, he looks grimly at me. "I thought Isabella was just a plaything for you. I hoped she'd be nothing more…but now I know how wrong I was."

He flicks the lighter, and I flinch. The flames are so near, and a single burn might prevent any healing.

"You know why I call you my brother?"

I look away from the lighter. "Because we share the same venom… like blood. It connects us."

"Exactly. And it's the reason we share so many traits as vampires—why our tastes are so similar. You see, when you brought Isabella here and I smelled her blood, I instantly knew who she was. Not just food or one of your infatuations. No, she was more than that."

Again he flicks the lighter and holds the small flame to her face, illuminating her face. The room is dark because the curtains are closed and the blinds are down. I see perfectly clear, but what I'm hearing is harder to process.

"Six years ago, I drank from someone who smelled exactly like your fair mate. He was a small boy wandering around in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do you remember the Brazilian savage I had you hunt down?" I nod slightly, the face of a dark man popping into my mind. "At the same time, I went up to Eleazar—I never told you his name. He's the one who stays in California, but I lost track of time. I got caught in the sun and I hadn't eaten in days… and there he was. The little boy whose scent was like heaven."

I've never seen him like this, lost in thought and memory. Still though, I don't dare to move as the flame flickers on and off sporadically. He's going to light her head up like sparkler.

"Then someone was calling a name, screaming. I could easily have overpowered her, but for some reason, I decided to slide back into the shadows. I watched as she cried and carried the body away. I thought that would be the last time I'd see the girl, until you brought her here."

The entire scenario begins to dawn on me, but Alec is stuck in the past, and doesn't stop talking. It's the most I've seen him speak for centuries since I killed Rosalía and we fought and yelled for hours.

"It's obvious Isabella has wanted nothing but revenge."

"But how would she know it was you? You said you hid."

He doesn't look away, but looks directly at me and says, "Because I intended to kill her. When I bit her, I did so to end her life. I figured she should know the truth before she died."

Seconds pass slowly, silently, as I stare at him.

He lied.

He never told me.

He tried to _kill_ her.

"You said you found her dying… you said you knew I wanted her alive. You—"

I feel like pulling off his limbs, slowly, like I did Laurent. I want him to feel the pain and acute panic I felt as I found him in the alley, crouching over Isabella with a bloody mouth. He tried to kill her because he wanted to cover up his mistakes and his past. When I killed Rosalía, I did so because it was right. She was a whore and a liar, and she was a threat to us all. Isabella is not.

Anger boils inside me, but the lighter keeps me in check.

He has played dirty, tricking and lying.

Manipulating.

"And now," I start, and stand up straight. I take two steps to the right, and he mirrors me. I've never seen him nervous like this. It even shows in his face. But why? He has the power. "You intend to finish the job? Kill her, take away my mate? Do you hate me that much?"

"She'll never stop. It's all she wants. She doesn't love you."

I take a brusque step forward, but he flicks the flame to her flesh. It sizzles for no more than a second, but it's enough to stop me.

"And you think Heidi loves you? It's obvious… she let Isabella go, and for what? She knew I'd accuse her, she knew I'd go after her. But she also knew if I did, you'd stop me from killing her, leaving her to change. It didn't work, but here we are. She has played her cards just right, and now she has gotten her wish. You know it's true; no one comes to us with the wish to solely stay a pet. Humans come to us to become immortal, not to be used until they die."

At this, he gives a weak smile. "It seems we feel the same about our mates. We think they love us, yet not that the other's does."

I don't smile back, but narrow my eyes at him. I no longer know if I can trust him, but at the same time, we've been through too much together to simply walk away. I'm torn between my brother and my lover.

"So where do we stand?" I ask, with a steady voice, but my knees are slightly bent, ready to attack if I must, or grab the head and body and run.

For the first time, and just as surprisingly as his nervousness, Alec shows a look of defeat on his face. It floors me, and I stand straighter as his shoulders slouch just slightly and he drops the lighter. He tosses the head to me, like a ball, and looks me right in the eye.

"I won't kill your mate, as long as you don't kill mine. I know Rosalía was nothing…I never really blamed you for her death. But you are my brother. Our venom connects us for eternity. If you choose to leave, there's little I can do to keep you."

"I-"

"Of course, if you do leave, I will track you down eventually," he says, and his threatening and menacing tone is back. The Alec I know. "And if your mate ever attempts to get her revenge again, I will not hesitate on killing her."

I growl.

He does the same, but his threat is more frightening than mine.

He's still my changer. He's still older, and can kill me right here, without taking any energy out of him.

Without a word, without a second look, I turn to go upstairs. In the doorway, he calls after me, "This is her punishment, Edward. The same as yours. You may love her, but she still acted in ill faith. She's unstable, and if we connect her now, there's no knowing what she'll do. Don't you remember when I did it to you? You destroyed an entire neighborhood in pure rage. When I say she has done her time, we'll mend her far away from here."

I want to say something, but I can't. Although I didn't want it, he gave me life; one where I'm not chained to a farm and a family I didn't want. And he's right about Isabella, as much as I love her, as much as I want to see her whole, she lied as well.

She never told me the truth.

She went after her own changer.

And she keeps saying _his_ name.

I don't like it, but the punishment is a must.

I nod slightly, but don't turn to look at him. I pass the pet in the living room, where she twitches, but doesn't make a sound. It's weird since most scream. I've witnessed a few changes in my time, and every time, they have screamed at the tops of their lungs. Isabella, in particular, gave out sounds I didn't think were possible. Through her trashing, I even managed to make out a few words: "_Tyler - please - no - mommy - Jasper - please, please - nooo!"_

I grab one of the white sheets from the furniture for the head, wrap it up good, and then head to the attic. There, I sit down besides Isabella, the head on the other side of me. She looks pitiful and pathetic, and extremely odd without her head. I pull the top up, covering up her chest, and the same with her pants.

-.-

Days pass.

She twitches, and a few times, there's a sound from the bundle of sheet. It's incredibly eerie, and sometimes when I'm caught up in my own thoughts, the moans make me jump to my feet, ready to attack.

Twice, I go the street for food, but I never go further than a few blocks. My trips never take more than ten minutes, tops, and I have no standards for my prey. I don't care about the taste.

How long will Alec have her stay this way? Weeks, months, or years?

Alec's pet, _Heidi_, as he insists I call her, wakes up from the change on the fifth day, just as the sun settles. I heard them downstairs, murmuring, talking, and then the sound of slurping as Heidi makes her first kill.

I've smelled her all day, the human Alec has brought for his mate, but it hasn't phased me at all. The scent hasn't enticed me, because Isabella is motionless today, and it's concerning. She won't die until she's burnt, but still, I worry. I've never spent this much time with someone decapitated, nor have I ever cared for someone else's well-being, apart from Alec.

The sound of slurping and swallowing ends, and then I hear them coming up the stairs. Both. Of course, I doubt Alec trusts me with his mate, after everything she's done. Everything she's caused. After all, if Heidi hadn't let Isabella free last year, she might not have been so resentful over her new life.

But, I've always had a hard time hating beautiful women. As a vampire, Heidi is more statuesque than ever—blonde, with legs to her neck, and blood-red eyes. On her neck are the scars only visible to the immortal. I take a small satisfaction in how ugly they are and how viciously Isabella dug her teeth into Heidi's flesh.

Alec holds his hand around her shoulder, in a way where he can pull her back if anything happens.

I don't move, knowing that Alec won't hesitate on hurting me to protect his mate. If I had had the chance, if it wouldn't have jeopardized Isabella's life, I would have attacked Alec long ago.

"I came here on my own accord. I wanted this," she starts, and already I feel anger boiling up inside me, knowing what's coming. "But her?" She points to Isabella, and I flare my teeth. "I heard her sobbing. I heard her crying. She never wanted this, and you were selfish for turning her. I helped her escape because it was for the best. You should have let her go."

I stand up in one swift move, shielding Isabella behind me. "If you hadn't made her run, she would have said yes to turning."

Heidi laughs mockingly, and now, Alec pulls her behind him. He has yet to say anything, but eyes me instead. "I hope for your sake that you're right, Edward, because when I saw her, she was far from over her human lover."

"You told her?" I rage at Alec, but he doesn't say anything.

"Of course he told me," Heidi interjects, making me look at her again. "Mates talk. They love. They don't keep each other prisoner and hope they'll forget about their pasts. I hope for your sake that Isabella doesn't see you for the pathetic dog you-"

I pounce at her before she can finish her sentence, but Alec slams me into the wall before I can reach her. "Hands to yourself, Edward," he threatens. "Or your little girl won't wake up."

This becomes one of many altercations between me and Heidi. I retreat back to Isabella, who stirs, but settles when my changer and his mate leave the house.

The air turns colder as the weeks pass, and outside, as I hunt swiftly without eyes and tastes, the leaves change color. The clouds gather to a gloom grey, but inside the house there is a constant state of red fury.

She shouts.

I shout.

Alec slams me against walls every time I step out of line.

She accuses me of being delusional for thinking Isabella can actually love me. But how can she not? I saved her from death and brought her out of depression. She loves me, as I love her. After all, she is the only one I have ever desired. The only one I've ever told about my past.

In return, I call Heidi a blood-whore and a traitor. "As if you didn't turn your back on her when she pleaded for you to save her!" I yell, and it leaves her speechless.

The fights are endless, but after a while, Heidi learns not to venture to the attic, just as I learn to hunt when she is gone.

But Heidi is not my only concern. There are the others. The young vampires and the drifters who used to stay here. For months, they have not shown themselves. Never returned. Though it's not their well-being I'm concerned for, it is strange for them to have just disappeared. Whether they have all been killed by someone… or if they've gone into hiding.

Their reasoning is disconcerting.

I can't figure out _why. _

And since I have all the hours of the day to think about it, I drive myself nuts trying to figure out what's going on. Alec shares my worry, but despite his best efforts in tracking them down, they have vanished like a shade in the night.

It's mid-November. Night has just fallen and as usual, I'm sitting by Isabella's side. Alec and Heidi are somewhere in the house, murmuring and eating. I hear my name and my mate's, but they lower their voices enough for me not to understand the rest of their conversation.

Then it happens.

What I've feared for months and months.

I'm on my feet as I hear them crashing through the door. I'm down the stairs just in time to see them jumping on Alec. Two, Diego and Marcus, with their raggedy clothing barely staying on their bodies, attack him head on. But Alec, for the first time, doesn't think. Instead of protecting himself, he pushes Heidi away and exposes his sides.

The sound of cracking has me pouncing before Heidi is even back on her feet. The room is turned into a disaster area within a minute as I throw Diego across the room. He crashes into the old clock and the glass shatters on the floor. Marcus, however, is harder to fight off. Although it takes more than a few broken bones to defeat Alec, Marcus has seen him fight before. He's seen his moves.

"Marcus, don't do this!" I shout, as he manages to get Alec into a headlock. A simple twist with enough strength will decapitate him.

And I can't have that.

"I'm the one who left you out there. Not him. It's me you want."

He looks up at me, eyes red, and sneers. But instead of following through with the beheading, he throws Alec across the room. He lands with a crash at Heidi's feet. She looks terrified and concerned, her hands checking all over him as he struggles to move.

"That's right," Marcus says, and he's no longer the young vampire without control that I left in the woods. He's posed in a crouch, and I hear Diego moving behind me. "I want you and your hypocrisy. Your idiocy. I'm not your bell-boy or your assistant. I won't run your errands and burn your foes anymore, Edward."

Diego jumps on Alec, but Heidi manages to fight him off, removing an arm in a very impressive back-throw. During their struggle, as Alec slowly gets to his feet and joins in their fighting, Marcus and I circle each other.

"You treated me like a lap-dog—like I was worthless. You don't own that right. You didn't change me."

"You're right," I growl. "I didn't change you. If I had, I would have had the decency to kill you, you sorry excuse for a vampire. Running out into the sun for food, Marcus? A fresh vampire knows better than that. Everybody else in that cabin knew better."

Two steps to the right and three to the left. I see Diego with no arms, and the mates making their first joint kill. They're synchronized, mirroring each other's stabs and bites as if they were one.

Would Isabella been on my side like that, had she been here?

"Your arrogance and ego will end up killing you," he bites back, but he doesn't move forward. He keeps his distance, and I see his eyes darting over my shoulder where Diego is torn to pieces. The sound of ripping and moaning fills the room, and Marcus' panic is evident in his face.

He came here thinking he could one-up us, as if he had the upper hand. I can't look away from the possibility that they have been scouting the area for a long time, and noticed that I rarely eat. He must have thought I'm weak, but I'm not.

I've preserved my strength.

I smile, knowing I'll come out of this victorious. My confidence catches him off-guard, and his eyes start darting around the room.

"_My_ arrogance, Marcus," I laugh, "is what keeps me alive. But _your_ arrogance will end you. Did you honestly think you could kill the three of us with two measly children? I have fought the old, and I've won. I've fought the new, and it's been a game. You don't know a thing about survival, Marcus. If you did, you wouldn't have come."

Behind me, Heidi and Alec emerge at my sides. Frightened, Marcus speaks, but his voice has lost all conviction. "I'm not the only one. There are more waiting. If I don't come back, they'll come and they will kill you. We outnumber you easily."

I take one step forward, and he moves to his right, closer to the door.

"They know about the pet being changed, and they're mad. Sick of your hypocrisy. You said no one was to change her, and anyone who changes _anyone_ under your roof will be punished, yet you allow _two_ to be turned."

Then, without another word, he jumps and runs, breaking through the door and vanishing into the shadows of the night. Heidi starts after him, but Alec stops her. "Let him go. It may buy us some time."

"Time for what?" she asks, and looks at the both of us.

I look at Alec, and we both know the answer. "To run."


	19. Harness your blame and walk through, pt3

-.-

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Chapter: **17. Harness your blame and walk through, pt3

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N:  
><strong>Late as always… But here it is: the ending. There will be a longer A/N in the Epilogue.  
>Enjoy.<p>

-.-

**Part III  
><em>Isabella<em>**

This pain is intense, an aching that never seems to end, and unlike anything I've felt in the past. It's in my bones, in my venom, but not like being changed.

Nothing trumps that fire, but this comes close.

I am not deaf. I am not mute. I am not blind. As the pain increases and ceases on a regular interval, I see stars and blurred shadows. Through the sound of screams in my own head, I hear voices.

Male.

Female.

On two occasions I hear their words, my name included, and it irks me not knowing what's being said.

The pain continues. It's my only constant.

I wonder if this is hell.

Or somewhere worse.

-.-

I can't move at all. When the pain is at its lowest, I try to concentrate and move my limbs. Each time, I am left with a feeling of failure. What kind of hell is this, where I cannot move nor speak?

Where are the Devil and his torturers?

Where is his whip?

But then something happens. I can feel my body again, and I am able tap my finger against hard wood.

I smell burning flesh. Feel my venom searing.

Is this the sun torture? Has the Devil turned God's devices on me?

But no, my skin is not warm. This is a different burn. And it feels good after a while, soothing almost.

I tap more fingers, and flex my toes. Stretch my legs. The voices around me become clearer, and I recognize them now. Edward, Alec, and a woman I don't know. Voices are raised, and I hear Edward growl my name and… pleading?

But then the silence comes back, and as each passing second makes me more aware of my surroundings, I am able to open my eyes and see.

The ceiling is one I'm accustomed to.

The darkness, even more.

Then I see green eyes and a worried smile.

I'm picked up and cradled in strong arms. I feel how weak I am, and how much strength it takes just to move. I lay my head against the fabric of a shirt.

No heartbeat.

This is Edward.

Dead and cold, carrying me.

He shifts me around in his arms, and then he runs. The wind slashes against my skin, and it is a cold wind. In my haze, everything is a blur, I see the green around me has wilted and become an array of browns, oranges, and reds. Then, we must have come up higher in the country, because I see white.

Like the snow back home, where the winters were short, but brutal.

The landscape around us is almost as dead as us, barren and all rocks. The trees are gone, and I realize we must be very high up. Here, I look up—my neck aching as I do, and I see Edward staring straight ahead. His face is lit up by moonlight, making him look paler than he is, and his hair flairs in the wind. His brows are furrowed and his lips are thin. He looks as if a world of worry is resting on his shoulders

I tilt my head back down, burying it deep into his neck. Being in his arms means I'm not dead. And if I'm not dead, I can only conclude that I didn't succeed. Maybe the girl was nothing to Alec. Maybe she was just a pet to him, like I was to Edward in the beginning.

Then she's dead, and I'm not.

And Alec is still alive and well, not hurt at all.

Failure hits me like a ton of bricks.

So I close my eyes, and try to forget where I am.

-.-

As Edward slows down his pace, I tilt my head around in time to see a long mane of blonde hair rushing past us. At first, I don't know what to make of it; I'm tired and sore, my neck aching with every movement. But then Edward slows even more, and so does the owner of the blonde mane.

In the middle of a deserted valley, with the sound of water around us, devoid of animal noises, I see _my _changeling.

The blonde from the train, from the bus, from the window.

The whore from the street, who turned her back on me.

The green eyed victim.

She's not dead?

But how?

She stops right in front of me and Edward, not saying a word, My mate oozes of malcontent. He slides me from his arms to my feet, my knees struggling to hold me up, and he wraps a strong arm around my waist to straighten me.

"You-"

"Thank you."

Before I can utter a single sentence, I'm left speechless.

"Thank you?" I nearly stutter.

Blondie smiles, baring pearly whites. But it's a kind smile, pleasant even. The woman is several inches taller than me, and more poised. She looks like a vampire. She looks like she was born for immortality.

"I turned you into a demon," I say, but the words don't sit right in my mouth. Demon? Is that what I am? No, I am what I have been made. A vampire. Nature's cruel joke. But no, I can't see the wrong in the delicious taste of blood in my mouth. Running down my throat, filling me up. It's an orgasm. And I love it.

"If not you, then someone else, Isabella," she smiles. "My name is Heidi, in case you didn't know, and don't apologize for this. We will talk soon, but first, I think you should get something in your stomach."

Behind me, Edward lets out a small growl, but I pay him no mind. It's hard to pay attention to anything. Famished, my throat aches for her offer.

And then he's there.

Holding two unconscious bodies.

I don't know who I want to jump on the most.

Alec strolls towards us as if this is normal, as if nothing has happened. But I haven't forgotten. The pain that tortured me, for I don't know how long, was not enough to turn my vengeance to ashes.

But I have no power. Will is not enough when your body is running on empty. A few feet away, he tosses one of the bodies to me, Edward lets me go, and I fall to my knees and tear into dark skin. As the first drop hits my tongue, I latch on and don't let go. I close my eyes and swallow.

Swallow.

Swallow.

Sweet mother of God.

Never letting a drop go to waste.

It's a clean kill.

The human never even moves. No resistance.

The next one goes down slower. I take my time with this one. I take time to really taste it; and I notice the human's blood is missing something. A sweetness. But I drink and I eat, forgetting that I'm surrounded by the oddest crowd.

My mate, the same person who killed my lover.

The woman I changed.

My Sire, whom I want dead.

And another.

Behind them stands a short old man with silver hair and the palest white skin contrasting against deep brown eyes. He looks like a grandfather, almost out of place in this young crowd, and there is no pulse. I hear nothing but the wind.

So he is like us.

But apart from the grandfatherly appearance, he looks far from sweet and innocent. The parts of skin that are exposed, his neck, hands, face are all tainted with the same white scars I bear. And where I have one thin line around my throat, his is broad, thick like rings of a tree giving away its age; like his head has been torn off and reattached a hundred times. His lip twist into a tight grimace, and I want to cower away from this man.

He is old.

Older than Alec.

It is as if I can feel how much power he has, how much authority he holds.

"Alec," he says, and I'm instantly reminded of my old landlord, Stavros. The thick Russian accents flows off his tongue as he motions Alec toward him, and talks to him in a low whisper. They begin to speak a language I have never heard before. They are animated as both bear angry faces and talk in aggressive tones, switching between timeworn words that sound like Russian, Latin, Italian, and Greek. A merging of them all. Their backs are turned to us, but the wind carries their argument.

I look up at Edward, who's staring at Heidi. She seems oblivious though, looking at Alec with a worried expression.

A look of tender worry.

A look I gave Jasper every time he left me.

The same look I saw in his eyes when he picked me up and help me as I cried.

"What's going on?" I ask Edward in a hushed voice, but it silences the air.

Alec and the Russian man turn to look at me, and I feel like a child about to be scolded.

"_Bella,_" the man says, the heavy Italian accent clouding his speech. "_What's going on_ is that you have entered my jurisdiction. Not only does your lot bring newborns, but also quarrels bound to end in fire. _What's going on_ is that you come here and ask me for help, as if I grant favors to younglings who leave their backs exposed to attack when they are _handed_ a meal."

He turns back to Alec, and for the first time in my life - mortal and immortal - I'm scared for him. The old man looks venomous, like an evil king ready to sign someone's death warrant.

"She is your mate?" he asks Alec, and at first I'm confused, thinking he's referring to me.

"Yes."

"And she knew?"

"Yes."

"Africa?"

Alec nods, never breaking eye-contact with the old man, even though Heidi looks ready to scream for his attention. Her eyes are wild, questioning, bewildered.

"Then let it be so. You and Edward will follow me. I will tell the others to stay clear of your mates, though I recommend they don't venture off too far. If what Alec told me is true, then I suspect your enemies are not far behind."

"Sir," Edward nods, and then follows them as the old man and Alec turn around and start walking. I look confused at Heidi, who seems to have lost her bewilderment. Now she seems just as informed as our mates, while I stand alone.

She gives me a short smile. "Find me after."

"After what?" I ask, but she doesn't answer. Instead, she leaves me as well.

She runs across the barren hilltops, her mute footsteps echoing like a graceful vampire.

I close my eyes.

I let the scenery around me fade away until I'm left with only darkness.

And I lose myself to my own mind.

Remembering.

Questioning.

_"It should have been you."_

_"You're dead to me."_

_"Bye, beautiful." _

_"You look beautiful in that light." _

_"I am the judge, the jury, and the executioner." _

_"Your scent…by God…never before have I smelled something as tempting."_

_"Why did you let him take me, Bella? Why didn't you save me?"_

_"…never call us again."_

_"You're nothing. _I _was his everything."_

Fire flashes behind my closed lids and my skin prickles with the memory of being changed. The hunger. The never-ending fire in my throat. My first kill on my own. Edward on top of me, so raw and rough, and yet I have loved every time I've been with him.

But I don't love him, do I?

I love the motion, reminding me of Jasper. He is the one I love. Still.

And now I'm here. But why? How?

Why have they brought me here, and who is the enemy the old man talked of?

I walk aimlessly through the barren land, my head flooded with memories and questions. Every time I start a thought, though, it ends with Heidi.

Tyler, woods, Alec, changing me, changing her.

Jasper, killed by Edward, keeping me hostage, seeing her in the window.

Escaping, saying goodbye, her comforting me on the bus.

I slouch down behind a large rock, resting my head against my knees. I'm far from tired, though I feel the blood from the two humans was not enough to sate me completely. The fire in my throat stays, like an annoying itch.

The wind carries voices.

I hear the familiar sound of Edward somewhere behind me, and I stay still so as to not expose my hide-away. And he's not alone.

"She's a strong one."

"She's a fighter. Has been since birth."

"And how old is the child?"

"We're closing in on a year, come the new year. But her body is around twenty-three, I think."

"A woman then. _Bella donna._ Much like fair Heidi, although _she_ seems to have adapted easier than your mate, Edward."

"It's complicated."

"It should be, seeing it has led you all to trespass on my quarters. You're lucky Alec once saved me."

"Sir."

"Uninvited, with a war trailing on your feet! I trust you already know that I will not take part in your quarrel. Nor will anyone else in my house. We protect what is ours, but this has nothing to do with me. I understand why Alec and you will not budge from this fight. Why you won't run.,

"Of course."

Silence follows, and I stay rigid behind the rock, hoping they don't find me. Though I should have nothing to fear, and I have done nothing wrong, the old man still intimidates me.

A rock is kicked, and it lands no more than three feet away from me. Then silence again. Vampires make no noise, but we can hear each other most of the time. We are rarely surprised. But I'm young. I know that. It has been pointed out several times that I have much to learn still.

"We should get back. Alec will want to set up a plan."

Then they're gone.

-.-

I run.

I'm not trying to get away or escape.

I keep running until the rocks become smaller and trees begin to rise against the valley. Greenery greets me as I let my legs do the work and instincts take over. The crisp air is free of humans, but the air does hold the tinges of wild blood. Animals. And something else.

The moon rises behind a snow-coated mountain, and in its light sits a black silhouette.

I slow down until I'm walking up to her. I sit down, letting my legs dangle off the edge and I almost feel like a child again. I almost feel human. When I still was, I went hiking once in a while. Forks had great terrain for trips in the woods and the cliffs.

I realize I could run there in the matter of few hours.

But I won't.

My mom got her wish. I'm dead.

I tilt my head to the side and look at her. Heidi is older than me in human years, but her face holds a beauty I never had. She is grace and poise incarnated. Clean lines and sun-kissed skin.

"Did you stalk me? I saw you so many times; the first time was on the subway to Brooklyn. You wore a red coat."

"Coincidence. Though funny enough, I remember you." She turns her head to me, the moon reflecting in her eyes. "You were the sulking girl in the back. I remember I hated you; you were just some little girl glaring at me on the subway, but I hated you. You had it so easy. You didn't love a vampire. You didn't crave the same macabre things I craved. You were so free. But I guess I was wrong on that one."

"You have no idea," I snort. "So why didn't you do something when I saw you in the window? Or was it you who let me escape?"

She turns away again, and I wonder if it's because she's ashamed to say it to my face. "When Alec told me Edward had taken a human as a pet, I thought he was joking. But Alec…well, he doesn't joke that much, to say the least. I didn't pay you any mind, really. I figured you'd be dead within days. But then they had me buy you food and bring it to you. Sure, Edward was the one to take it to you, but I started to get curious as the months went by. I just didn't understand why he was so intrigued by you. Alec complained too… You have no idea how much you affected the both of them. Alec was mad and wanted you gone. So yes, it was me who opened up the door, at Alec's request."

Hearing his name over and over again makes my venom boil, but I hold my tongue.

"When I remembered who you were, I wanted to hate you even more. But I couldn't. I chose this, but you were forced. First by Alec, and then Edward. You were destined for this life for so many years, and you didn't even know it."

"You didn't choose it. I attacked you," I say, but she laughs.

"You may have attacked me, Isabella, but I came willingly. I've wanted this for almost a decade."

I look at her bewildered. "A _decade?_ How have you known about all of this for so long?"

Again, she laughs, but it's haunted and dead. She looks down on her feet, and I mimic her. Five-hundred feet straight down. If I jumped, I would be able to stand up and walk away unscathed.

"Do you know why we drink blood, Isabella?"

"Because we're thirsty?" I answer dumbly, not really caring. Still, she looks up at the moon with a small smile on her lips, like she has a secret no one else knows. It makes me curious, so I ask, "Why?"

"The obvious answer is, well, because we _are_ thirsty. When we turn, muscles and bones become something black and hard. A mass. Our blood turns into venom, but maintains the same functions as blood. Because of our strength, our speed, and our ability to sense things a thousand times better than humans, our bodies need more venom to function. Like humans die when they don't drink water, we'll wither away if we do not have blood."

Her eyes never leave the moon, and mine never leave her lips. She continues to smile, and while I hear her story, her lips turn higher up, as though she is recalling a fond memory with a lover.

"How do you know all this?"

"Alec was not my first vampire. In my college days, when I thought I could save the world, I went to Africa. On the Ivory Coast, the Ashanti people would tell me stories about a creature they called _asanbosam_. I thought it was just folklore back then, Then one night, I was home-sick and tired. I was drunk, and wandered out into the night. There, I came across a man with the darkest skin and whitest teeth I had ever seen."

"Why didn't he kill you?" I ask. Had it been me, Heidi wouldn't have lived for long. I've already proven that.

She laughs, soft and quiet. Finally, she turns to me, and her green eyes pierce through me.

"You're young. Hell, we're both young. We run around and use our strength more than older vampires; we don't have the tactics or strategizing to use our own abilities in our favor. That is why Alec didn't just kill you when you first came here. That is why Edward didn't drain you on the spot. With age comes wisdom, and wisdom is based on experience."

She stops and sighs.

"The African vampire didn't kill me because he was nearing a thousand years in age. He was lonely and bored. I became his… ah, how shall I put this? Pet? Isn't that was Alec calls me?" She stops for a few minutes, and I wonder if Alec's degrading title has hurt her.

"The African didn't use me in the same way as Alec. He loved the taste of children's blood. It really does differ from man to man. A western vampire usually avoids ethnic Asians because of the lack of milk. Asian vampires think of the western people too sweet. Instead, he used me to lure out children. They liked me, and I led them to their deaths."

"I'm surprised," I say. "I don't know many mortals who would willingly pass up children for death. Why did you do it?"

"I wanted answers. He would talk, and I would listen. He was lonely, and I was willing to keep him company. I'd always been intrigued by the vampire lore, and when I realized they were real? Let's just say I'd do just about anything to learn more."

The more she talks, I come up with more and more questions to ask, most revolving around her inexplicitway of handling herself in this life; why she doesn't fight it. Why she doesn't hate me. Even if she has wanted this for years, it is hard to come to terms with the fact that someone would choose to be like this.

"You're too at peace with this."

"With what?" she asks, but she knows.

"Being...this. A vampire. Immortal. How can you be so….natural?"

"I already told you, Isabella. I've wanted this for years. Immortality, super-human abilities. Thought strength and speed isn't what draws me in the most; no, it's the freedom of it all. Call me naïve, but I think it's liberating. Truthfully, I did not think I would fall in love on the way, but with Alec, it just happened. I know all about his past, about his wrong-doings, even about the girl he once chose for a mate. Despite all that, I love him. It can't be explained. I came to him to be turned, but he kept me, and made sure I was safe. He has killed for me, though I know he won't admit to it. He's talked with me, like a lover would, and I love him for that."

I stare at her incredulously. Alec, talk like a lover? I can't picture him as anything but brute and vile; the Alec she has seen will never fit with my image of him.

"And because I love him," she continues, and this time she looks at me with a fierce intensity and determination. "I want you to promise not to fulfill your need to avenge your brother. He's the love of my life, Isabella."

I look away. Hearing her speak of Alec with such tenderness is disarming. The same way I would think of Jasper, spoken aloud about the man I hate. "He killed my brother."

"And?" Her voice turns cold and harsh. "How many have you killed since you were turned, Isabella? You're so caught up with what he stole from _you,_ that you don't realize how much _you_ have stolen. Brothers, sisters, children, parents. Vengeance might be embedded in your venom, but don't be so full of yourself. Don't you see your own hypocrisy? Will you bow down to the first mortal who comes to you in hatred, and asks for your head?"

I touch the line around my throat, looking up at the sky. I won't. She knows it, I know it. It's not in my venom to die for someone else like that.

Then, what? If not revenge, what do I have to drive me?

But there is still one question left unanswered.

"Who is the old man? And how do Alec know him?"

At this point, Heidi stands up and looks down on me. "His name is Eleazar. He more or less runs the entire area from North-California along the coast up to Alaska. He has been around for centuries and he's older than any other living vampire that Alec knows of. I don't know how they know each other, Alec hasn't told me, but I have a feeling he never will. Some things are better left un…"

She never gets the chance to finish, because suddenly the silence is broken by foot-steps running towards us. The wind carries their crashing sounds from the east, and I throw my head around to stare into the thick forest behind and slightly below us. I can see branches are broken, and stones are crushed into pebbles. I'm almost astounded by the fierce sounds and since I can't hear any heartbeats, these must be the noisiest vampires I've ever heard.

Heidi starts running before I'm even on my feet, but I catch up quickly. We leave the trees and wildlife behind and run for rocks and stone-men. "Who are they?" I shout.

"They're the men who want us dead," Heidi shouts back as she picks up speed. There is seven of them, and they are closing in on us.

"Why do they want us dead?"

"It's complicated. Ask me later, if we're still alive."

I fall back two steps, scenarios where I burn flash before my eyes.

I don't want to die.

Like a boost of adrenaline, my venom starts to rush through me with passion. I push my legs faster, and suddenly I'm rushing past Heidi.

_I have to warn him!_

_I'm not strong enough to fight!_

_I need him!_

I see Edward in my head, and I see him fighting with Alec in the attic. But Alec is older and stronger. These vampires sound like they are younger than me. Surely Edward can get rid of them easily. But there were so many feet running…

So many.

I shake off the fear of being torn apart just as we close in on the outcrop of rocks and men.

Alec and Edward both look grave and worried, but as Heidi and I reach them, both of their faces change for a split second. Relief. Heidi jumps into her mate's arms as I stop to stand in front of mine.

This is not love.

This is loyalty.

And Edward owns me.

"I counted seven vampires. There may be more," I tell him as he pulls me close to him. His affection. I tilt my head up, my body on the verge of purring, and try to compose myself as I say, "Why are they after us?"

But Edward shakes his head, though not at me. At himself. "I made some mistakes, and it has led to this. Some of the others in the house were _displeased_ with the way things were run. There was a, uhm… when you were…"

He trips and falls over his own words, and it's the oddest thing to witness.

"While you were being punished, someone Edward left in the sun came back for revenge. He didn't like that both you and Heidi had been changed, when they were not allowed to do so. They want us dead because of trivialities," Alec chimes in. "There were only two others in that house stupid enough to join Marcus in this little vendetta. If there are seven, they must be newborns. This means they will be reckless, but full of energy. We need to tire them out and rip them up before they can do the same to us."

The General cometh.

Alec takes lead, telling us about strategies and the easiest ways to slow the others down, and how to throw their pieces far away from each other. Heidi and I listen intently, but there's just not enough time.

They close in.

Their loud footsteps echo in the valley.

We stand united as four, against seven separate dead. Edward grasps my hand and squeezes it, but the small reassuring feeling it gives me only lasts a second. With the black sky and a full moon on their backs, the threat to our lives inches closer and closer.

In the front leads a large brown-haired man, his red eyes glowing with the urge to kill, but the rest do not run with the same determination. I recognize one named Diego, the vampire who brought me my first meal as a vampire. Why does he want me dead? What have I ever done to him? These are not questions I expect to be answered.

Alec starts to run toward them with Heidi hot on his heels. I look up at my own mate, petrified. I don't know how to fight. I've only attacked those weaker than me, those I've known I could overpower.

In many ways, I'm a child myself.

I know nothing of combat.

"Go for the ones in the back," Edward tells me and lets go of my hand. "They're the youngest. Remember to take their arms first, they are useless without them." And with that, he takes off towards our enemies.

And then, there are only blurred figures and screams.

Bodies kicked and punched, thrown and broken.

Thick ominous clouds have gathered above us, huddling together as rain begins to fall, and hurdle lightning and thunder our way. It's the first drop of water that gets me to move, and I'm drenched in seconds.

This is it.

It's now or never.

A petite woman jumps on me, her eyes wild, but I dodge her easily as she slips and turns on the wet earth. Baring my teeth, shark sharp, I crouch and growl, and jump at the same time as her. We meet mid-air, clashing and clawing at each other. I dodge her hits for a moment, but cry out as she lands a horrific punch to my chest.

I stumble, and it is my biggest mistake.

A second vampire appears and holds me from behind. Squeezing. Crushing. I scream.

"Edward!"

I feel my own stone bones breaking. My flesh breaking. The petite woman tears on my leg, and I'm consumed by fire and the rain does nothing to put it out. With the last iron bit of power I seem to possess, I throw my head back, and the vampire holding me loosens his grip just enough for me to wiggle free, kicking the petite one in the face.

The scene in front of me is biblical.

Heidi is missing three fingers, but fighting with a large, burly blonde.

Alec is holding off two on his own, dodging punches and throwing Diego and the brown-haired leader around.

But Edward struggles the most. With one clawing on his back, he tries to fight off another, but it's clear he is losing. The one who tried to crush me joins them, making Edward buckle. I race over, my leg mending in an instant, and manage to drag the one off on Edward's back. He growls and bulldozes me into the ground.

I recover quickly and in a quick maneuver, I roll us over so that I sit on his back and wring his neck around. His arms flail and his legs kick uncontrollably, and I throw his stunned face a hundred yards away from the rest of the body.

In my triumphant moment, I never hear her coming.

I never see her rushing towards me.

All I see is Edward's terrified face and hear his voice as he calls out my name.

The rain keeps falling in buckets and buckets.

I never see her coming.

The petite one is on front of me, and in the exact place she hit me before, she slices my skin with her hand. It goes right through me, and I gasp. I feel warm venom pouring out of me, and I feel her arm - as if it were a part of me.

She smiles, the most evil smile I've ever seen, and laughs.

It feels like dying.

Her laugh echoes in my ears, and it fills all my senses. There is only laughter, rain, and pain.

They consume me.

Then there are hands on my head, and when I think I have lost, the hands are gone, and so is the petite woman's hand. Alec throws her away, and the force which he uses to rip her out of me makes me produce the most blood-curling sound.

He helps me to my feet, but there is no "thank you" and "you're welcome".

There is a nod.

And then he turns to help Heidi. Her opponent is killed easily, and when I turn around, I see Edward stand. He is the winner of a pile of limbs. A grisly mountain of trophies.

His chest heaving.

His eyes boring into me.

He's safe.

He's alive.

And Alec saved me.

The same creature who killed my brother, saved my life.

Heidi's word come back to me; _You're so caught up with what he stole from you, that you don't realize how much you have stolen. _I realize she's right.

We are what we are.

And although I will never forget, and never truly let go of my anger, I can't look past my own hypocrisy when it's pointed out to me. He has killed my brother, and thousands before that, but I have done the same. And I will continue to do so until the day I burn for my sins.

I look over to see Alec holding Heidi, and over his shoulder, she nods to me. As if she has read my mind, she mouths, _"thank you"_.

I look away. Acceptance hurts.

Edward comes to me, his hair wet and stuck to his forehead, and he smiles as he takes me into his arms.

The war is over.

We won.

Standing there in the rain, Edward explains everything. As Alec and Heidi leave, we stay put until the rains stops pouring and the sky reveals the moon. I don't let him go. I hold onto Edward as if I love him.

"Alec killed my brother," I say, but not with malevolence, just stating a fact. "Even though I promise not to hurt him, I can't stay near him." I bury my head in his chest, smelling him. "This country is tainted now. I have no home."

He sighs.

"It will never be the same. He is the man who made me. He is my brother and father all at once, Isabella. Nothing can change what we are, but… his lies have changed _how_ we are. I can't forgive him for trying to kill you no more than you can forgive him for taking away you brother. No more than you can forgive me for taking away your human. But this is what we are. You see that now, don't you?"

I nod, holding onto him even harder.

"He is my changer. My brother. But you are my mate. I will always come to you. Always."

This is his declaration of love.

This is him choosing me over Alec.

And I have nowhere to run.

"I'll take you home. To my home. He has Heidi now. Vampires rarely travel in groups of more than two—it's not how we work. We don't share prey well either.

Two.

The two of us.

"Where is home?" I ask, but then I remember the time in the attic, where he shared his past with me. Where, without me knowing it, he told me he loved me through a morbid story. Even if I don't want to admit it, I do know Edward. I understand his mind. Apart from Alec, there would be no one he would have told about his past. I am the only one.

I am the only one.

"Norway. I'll show you a place hidden from the world. A place that died a long time ago."

I nod, and then I turn in his arms. We stand with our arms around each other in an awkward hug because we cannot love each other in the way we should. Although Edward is all I have, but he is not all I've ever loved. Despite my hardened core, there is still the yearning for Jasper. The spite I hold against Edward for killing him will never go away.

He does not have my heart, but he has my loyalty.

Although he has cursed me, he has also saved me. Had he never entered my life, there's a good chance I would have killed myself. Jasper would have left me, and I would have been left with only mourning and guilt. I lived under the belief that I killed my brother. But I didn't. I was not responsible for his death.

Without Edward, I would never have found out the truth. Even if I cannot have vengeance, I can have some peace.

In return, Edward does not love me truly because he had to trick and cheat and ruin me before I even saw him as a potential lover.

That is not love.

But we have tentative trust and unfaltering loyalty. I will not stray from his side, and he will not stray from mine.

For we are the cruel and unforgiving.

For we are the evil that preys on good.

For we are vampires, forged in blood.


	20. The story's all over you

**The End of a Bloodline**

**Epilogue:** The story's all over you

**Rated: **M

**Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer created Twilight, not me.  
>I, on the other hand, created TEOAB – respect that<p>

**Beta: **Gasaway Alley

**A/N: **

_Taut line  
>Down to the shoreline<br>The end of a bloodline  
>The moon is a cold light<em>

_There's a pull to the flow  
>My feet melt the snow<br>For the irony I'd rather know  
><em>Blindsided - Bon Iver

**-.-**

I remember the first time I set my feet on this island ten years ago.

There was a full moon.

Darkness all around me.

_This_ is where he grew up? I had wondered.

_This_ is where he murdered? I had reveled.

_This _is where he died? I had mused.

Ten years ago, we had set sails towards Europe, and after making port in Portugal, Alec and Heidi left us for Italy. Edward brought me here to Norway, where he showed me his birthplace and his death-ground.

The island is abandoned now. So has it been for centuries. The plague murdered the country, leaving only a few survivors in the most remote of places. On Åkra, there weren't any survivors. The houses had wasted away into the mountain walls, and the docks had been fled.

Edward told me the Norwegians had tried to rebuild the island once, and had brought a ferry to start up a connection line. But the lands had been haunted. The sailors and the businessmen returned to the mainland with fear in their hearts. They told stories of a ghost who roamed the shadows. A creature, an imprint of someone who died in a cruel way. In reality, that man never really died, but his memory remained, and became a tale to scare young children. Though people grew up and knew better than to believe in spirits, no one ever came here. They would try to rationalize it, blame it on the dangers of the mountain and the rough waters—but I know the truth.

So does Edward, because he was the creature; the ghost.

He told me of young women and men who came laughing, and left crying. During the years he had stayed here on his own, scaring them had been his game. He never killed any of them, he had an affinity for Norwegians. Edward is a strange man, to say the least. He feels no remorse for killing the man I loved, but shudders at the thought of draining his kinsmen.

So, he would scare them off instead. And when he left, because Alec called him back to his side, the sound of critters and stray animals had been enough to scare anyone who dared to dock on the island. It has happened once since I came here; three teenagers in odd red pants and hats, celebrating their graduation, came by a small motorboat. They drank. They danced. But when night fell, I took on the role of the "ghost".

Edward wasn't happy with me then, but I hadn't eaten in a while.

Three boys came, and three boys stayed—buried in the ground. I dragged their boat and swam out to smash it into recognizable chunks.

Back on the mainland, I had looked through a window and seen their faces on TV. The town was in distress over their deaths: lost at sea. The graduation ceremony cancelled.

I didn't weep for them. Why should I?

From the day of the battle, and from the day I truly embraced what I am, I have not felt any guilt over my actions. Though still bitter over Jasper, and still angry over Tyler, I can't change the past. I am one of the great evils of the world. What I want revenged, are actions I have committed myself.

I gaze over the pitch-black water, shimmering slightly under the moon's light, watch as the ice breaks into floating mini-bergs. My tracks are obvious, but I let myself be reckless tonight. There are no dangers around. No one ever comes here during winter.

"Isabella," I hear him call, and I turn away from the sight of abandonment. I'm soaked through my clothes, but the weight of the water doesn't slow me down as I pick up to run through the forest, and over the streams. Laughing as I hear the critters and animals shy away from my presence.

His house was once in a small valley.

There is no house anymore.

Over the centuries it must have been burned down, but there are remnants. During summer, you can still see the dead spots in the grass big enough to be the shadow from a house and a barn. Planks of wood still represent a fence, but barely there. Covered in snow, now though, it's only a dead valley.

I find him standing in a spot where three large stones are three feet apart. He has brushed away the snow from them, and uncovered them from the thick layer of winter. Despite the years I've been here, he has never taken me to this spot.

"This is them?"

"My sons…and my wife."

I have nothing to say, nor does he. I know he never loved them much, and I don't have a heart to search for sympathy. They are gone. Humans die and rot. That is the way of life.

Sometimes, we help them die sooner than nature intends.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'm not Nature's way of clearing the world from over-population.

Sometimes…I kill because it's fun.

"You're wet," he states without glancing my way. But he's close. Always close. After all these years, he still doesn't trust me. He still thinks I'll run away.

"I was hungry. There's nothing to eat here." My belly is full of blood from a tall, blonde man from the mainland.

He shakes his head. "I forgot how it's like to be young and hungry," he says, as if he's an old man with white hair and wisdom throughout time. Which, I suppose he has; wisdom. "You'll learn though."

His hand covers mine. It's morbid; standing in front of his wife's grave, holding hands like we're in love.

I still don't love him fully.

He knows.

Every time we fuck, I do so with vigor, and see the face of my true love. It's my vengeance, and I let him know all the time.

"I'll never be yours. I'll always be his. My scent covered _him._ _His_ body was covered with my passion and love. You'll _never_ have me," I tell him from time to time, when he's being greedy with food or goes back to demeaning me, and treating me like a child.

Once in a while, he takes off only to return hours later. Wounded? I haven't the slightest clue, but he always returns. But other times—other times he rips off my arms. Other times he crushes my chest like he's searching for my heart.

And every time—every time he comes out empty-handed.

My heart is not his. I will never be his.

And when I burn—because one day, I will burn, I shall see the face of two fair angels, right before I continue my journey into the fiery pits of hell. Of this I'm sure. This is my truth, but until then, I have no regret for my actions.

There is no salvation for the walking dead.

Edward's green eyes meet mine, and I see the moon reflected in them.

For years, there has only been he and I, on this island—his mortal home. We'll stay for a while until the winter ends, and then we'll move on

Although Edward appears to be evil and dark, I know there's something in him still. Where I still hold onto the bonds I have with my brother and my lover, Edward still cherishes his country. Although his hair and eyes connect to Ireland, his name and body roots go deep into the fjords and mountains of Norway. . We have traveled across the globe to be here; across continents and seas, all to come here.

I've seen his countrymen. I've fed off of them. When I lash out at him and taste his venom, I can taste the similarity in their blood.

Vikings.

Rapists and pillagers. Murderers and plotters.

Under the midnight moon, his face is clearer. His scars are visible. I see his past. I see his ghosts. I see a belt on his back and his father behind him. I see black eyes and bleeding wounds. I see him. I see everything.

And he sees me. With my scars and my wounds. With my past and my motives. But also my begrudged loyalty.

And here, on this empty island, where there is no life, we need no words to go on.

No words.

No life.

No bloodline.

* * *

><p>It's been over a year and a half since I began writing this story. Sometimes, a few months would go between updates. Inspiration pulls and tugs, slips and skips. But I did not give up - this was my first really multi-chaptered story, and this has been a journey I would not trade for anything. Despite the sporadic updates, I have loved all the encouragement. Every review. Every hit. Every inspirational song given to me to get me in the mood to write.<p>

To Udo - this story would not have seen the light of day without you.

To April - you picked up the pieces and pushed me further.

To Rose - always a supporter, always a pusher, always there for me.

To Ro - a loving wifey.

And to you - you who were there from the beginning, or started later on, or began long after it was finished. Thank you. This story was made for you as much as it was made for me.

_-.-_

_For Hjørdis  
>I miss you still<br>The last of a generation_

_-.-_


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